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18Nov/10Off

Uneasy House Democrats keep Pelosi as their leader

WASHINGTON -House Democrats gambled Wednesday they can return to power under the same leaders who just oversaw a 61-seat election loss, choosing Nancy Pelosi to remain their party chief when they become the minority in January.

Moderate Democrats pleaded for a change to show voters they understand the anger and unrest registered two weeks earlier on Election Day. And Pelosi didn't retain her leadership without a fight, defeating Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, 150-43, in secret balloting in a lengthy closed-door gathering on Capitol Hill.

In a contrast befitting the Nov. 2 election results, House Republicans kept Rep. John Boehner of Ohio as their leader without opposition, and he will become speaker in the new Congress. Eric Cantor of Virginia will retain the second-ranking party position, which will be majority leader, and Kevin McCarthy of California will be the party whip.

Boehner, who turned 61 on Wednesday, told his colleagues they will usher in "the dawn of a new majority," which he said will be "humbler, wiser, and more focused than its predecessors on the priorities of the people."

Pelosi, the nation's first female House speaker, will become minority leader when the 112th Congress convenes.

"She is the face that defeated us in this last election," declared Florida Rep. Allen Boyd, who was among those who lost re-election fights. However, Pelosi, who presided over big Democratic gains in the 2006 and 2008 elections, remains popular among the liberals who dominate her caucus more than ever. Dissident moderates could not find enough votes to force her aside.

In fact, the Democrats kept their entire leadership team intact despite election losses that President Barack Obama called "a shellacking." They elected Steny Hoyer of Maryland to keep the No. 2 post and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina to hold the third-ranking position, which will be renamed "assistant leader."

Pelosi and Clyburn are 70. Hoyer is 71. Cantor is 47, McCarthy 45.

Pelosi, a Californian, is a prodigious campaign fundraiser and tireless legislator known for listening to her colleagues but pressing them to stick with party leaders on key votes. Her supporters credit her for passing difficult, major legislation such as this year's health care overhaul.

Pelosi praised her lineup Wednesday. "It's a team that took us to victory in '05, in '06, and will take us to victory again," she said. "We extend the hand of friendship to the Republicans, we look forward to hearing their ideas on job creation and deficit reduction."

Some rank-and-file House Democrats said Pelosi pushed them too often to vote on controversial matters fated to die in the Senate. They contended she didn't appreciate the level of anti-Washington hostility in America.

Their anger grew this fall when dozens of GOP candidates assailed Pelosi in campaign ads that linked her to other Democrats.

Yet plenty of Democrats defended her on Wednesday.

"She did a good job of getting legislation through," said Barney Frank of Massachusetts. He downplayed the hubbub over Shuler's challenge, saying, "The focus on who is or who isn't the minority leader is a Washington insider issue."

But Shuler's level of support — plus an earlier 129-68 vote against postponing the election that Pelosi wanted to wrap up quickly — underscored the degree of discontent in a caucus that Pelosi had largely bent to her will in the past four years.

The next two years could be more challenging and less enjoyable for Pelosi and her allies. Republicans will control the House and will be able to filibuster almost any bill in the Senate. Obama has signaled he may seek compromises that could infuriate Pelosi's liberal supporters.

Shuler said his loss to Pelosi was expected but served as a warning that Democrats can't reject all Republican ideas all of the time. He and his allies said Shuler's 43 votes proved that the dissatisfaction with keeping Pelosi as leader extended well beyond the conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats, whose ranks were reduced to 24 in the Nov. 2 election.

"There was a lot of unrest in the room," Shuler said.

House Democrats were scheduled Thursday to hold a third straight day of closed-door meetings, which many members have used to vent their frustration and anger over their heavy losses. These rifts, if unresolved, could complicate the party's efforts to re-elect Obama and to win back the House majority in 2012.

Pelosi faces a potentially embarrassing public rebuke from at least some of her detractors on the first day of the new Congress in January. Shuler and the three centrist Democrats who nominated him to be leader — Reps. Larry Kissel of North Carolina, Mike Ross of Arkansas and Jim Matheson of Utah — said they would not vote for her when their turns come to rise and cast a ceremonial vote for speaker.

Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., said Wednesday's unsuccessful effort to postpone the party leadership elections reflected substantial angst among Democrats about how to rebuild.

"There's a lot of concern in the caucus about the direction that we want to go from here, and I think 68 votes shows significant concern," Cardoza said. "The caucus will continue to do a great deal of soul-searching."

Some lawmakers who voted for Pelosi did so with little apparent joy. "We got shellacked" in the midterm elections, said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif. "We are not happy."

—

Associated Press writers Jim Abrams, Laurie Kellman, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

(This version corrects the location of the meeting to Capitol Hill, not the Capitol itself.)

Uneasy House Democrats keep Pelosi as their leader

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12Nov/10Off

High court allows gay military ban for now

WASHINGTON -The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Pentagon to continue preventing openly gay people from serving in the military while a federal appeals court reviews the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The court did not comment in denying a request from the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, to step into the ongoing federal court review of "don't ask, don't tell." The Obama administration urged the high court not to get involved at this point.

Last month, a federal judge ruled that the policy violates the civil rights of gay Americans and she issued an injunction barring the Pentagon from applying it. But the San Francisco-based appeals court said the policy could remain in effect while it considers the administration's appeal.

"Log Cabin Republicans are disappointed that the Supreme Court decided to maintain the status quo with regards to 'don't ask, don't tell,' but we are not surprised," said R. Clarke Cooper, the group's executive director. "We are committed to pursuing every avenue in the fight against this failed and unconstitutional policy."

President Barack Obama has pledged to push lawmakers to repeal the law in the lame-duck session before a new Congress is sworn in. But administration lawyers have in the meantime defended "don't ask, don't tell" in court.

The policy, which prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, was lifted for eight days in October after U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that it is unconstitutional. The Obama administration asked the appeals court to reinstate the ban until it could hear arguments on the broader constitutional issues next year.

Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the court's consideration of the issue. Kagan served as the administration's chief Supreme Court lawyer before she became a justice in August.

—

Associated Press writer Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.

High court allows gay military ban for now

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6Nov/10Off

Officials: Saudis warned 3 weeks before attack

WASHINGTON -A Saudi tip about a possible al-Qaida effort to bring down airplanes was relayed to U.S. authorities in early October, nearly three weeks before the group's Yemen affiliate tried to ship mail bombs to the U.S. in cargo planes, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday.

The Saudi intelligence tip helped to head off what could have been a devastating series of plane explosions. Western officials credit the Saudis with playing a crucial role in finding two mail bombs recovered last week in Dubai and Britain before they reached the U.S.

On Friday, the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for sending the two bombs and threatened more attacks on civilian and cargo planes. The group also said it had a role in the crash of a UPS cargo plane in Dubai in September, but investigators so far have insisted an accident was at fault.

The Saudi tip in October contained no mention of cargo planes, or any details of the plot carried out last week, said U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters. But they said it gave the U.S. and other Western officials enough of a warning to know what to look for when another Saudi tip arrived last week.

A CIA spokesman Friday night cited several allies that have provided key intelligence about terrorist activities.

"Over the past several months, we received intelligence — which was shared across our government — from our foreign partners about threats from AQAP and other terrorist groups," said CIA spokesman George Little. "The United States receives this kind of information from other governments on a regular basis, as you would expect. Last week, we received specific intelligence that allowed the United States and our allies to disrupt the cargo plot. Our actions were swift and aggressive."

Another U.S. official said the Yemeni terror group's interest in plane attacks has been apparent since its failed Christmas Day attempt last year to bring down a Detroit-bound plane with explosives hidden in the underwear of a suicide bomber. Both the Christmas Day attack and the mail bombs sent last week used a powerful industrial explosive PETN, and the AQAP's top bomb maker is considered a top suspect in both attempts.

But although the tip relayed in October did raise alarms about a plane attack, it did not mention cargo planes or where the plot might originate or even who the attackers might be, the official said.

U.S. intelligence had been monitoring steady intelligence on a possible attack such as this since early September, one U.S. official has said. And in late September, authorities also intercepted a group of packages shipped to Chicago which in retrospect is now seen as a likely test run by the terror group to gauge the logistics of shipping bombs by air to the U.S.

The report on the Saudi tip in October was first reported Friday by The New York Times and the German news magazine Der Spiegel.

On Friday, AQAP said it would continue to strike American and Western interests and specifically said it would target civilian and cargo aircraft.

"We have struck three blows at your airplanes in a single year," the group said in a message posted on a militant website. "And God willing, we will continue to strike our blows against American interests and the interests of America's allies."

The authenticity of Friday's claim could not be immediately verified. A U.S. intelligence official said authorities are not surprised to see this claim now.

Authorities in the U.S. and the UAE have said the Sept. 3 crash of the UPS plane in Dubai shortly after takeoff was caused by an onboard fire, but investigators are taking another look at the incident following the parcel bomb plot.

A security official in the UAE familiar with the investigations into the UPS cargo plane crash in Dubai and the mail bombs plot told The Associated Press on Friday that there is no change in earlier findings and that the UPS crash in September was likely caused by an onboard fire and not by an explosive device.

"There was no explosion," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under standing UAE rules on disclosing security-related information.

A UPS spokesman, Norman Black, said his company had "no independent knowledge of this claim by al-Qaida," and noted that both UAE officials and U.S. National Transportation Safety Board officials have so far ruled out the possibility of a bomb as cause in the crash.

In its statement, al-Qaida's Yemeni offshoot said that it "downed the UPS airplane but because the enemy's media did not attribute the act to us, we kept silent about the operation until we could return the ball once more.

"We have done that, this time with two explosives, one of them sent via UPS, the other via FedEx."

It said that its "advanced explosives" give it "the opportunity to detonate (planes) in the air or after they have reached their final target, and they are designed to bypass all detection devices."

Both mail bombs were hidden inside computer printers and wired to detonators that used cell-phone technology and packed powdered PETN, a potent industrial explosive.

The message also directed a warning to Saudi Arabia, warning: "God's curse on the oppressors."

—

Murphy reported from Dubai. Associated Press writers Samantha Bomkamp in New York City and Eileen Sullivan, Adam Goldman and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

Officials: Saudis warned 3 weeks before attack

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27Oct/10Off

Indonesia’s volcanic eruption claims 28 lives

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia -Rescuers scoured the slopes of Indonesia's most volatile volcano Wednesday after it was rocked by an eruption that spewed clouds of searing ash, killing at least 28 villagers including an old man known as the mountain's spiritual gatekeeper.

The blast eased pressure that had been building up behind a lava dome perched on the volcano's crater, but experts said the worst may not be over. The lava dome could unleash deadly gases and debris if it collapses.

"It's a little calmer today," said Surono, the chief of Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. "No hot clouds, no rumbling. But a lot of energy is pent up back there. There's no telling what's next."

Mount Merapi, which translates as "Fire Mountain," has erupted many times over the last 200 years, often with deadly results. In 1994, 60 people were killed, while in 1930, more than a dozen villages were incinerated, leaving up to 1,300 dead.

Still, as with other volcanoes in Indonesia, more than 11,000 people call its fertile slopes home.

Though thousands streamed into makeshift emergency shelters after Tuesday's powerful eruption, many defied officials' warnings and started returning Wednesday, saying they had to tend to their crops and protect their homes.

"We'll do everything we can to stop them," said Hadi Purnomo, the district chief in Sleman, describing several formerly plush villages south of the crater as 'death zones.' "There's no life there. The trees, farms, houses are scorched. Everything is covered in heavy gray ash."

Several other areas, however, were virtually untouched.

"I keep thinking about what's happening up there," said Hadi Sumarmo, who has a farm in Srumbung, a village three miles (seven kilometers) from the cone. "I just want to go back to check. If I hear sirens, I'll get out again quickly."

Even as rescue officials contended with the volcano — one of 129 to watch in the world's largest archipelago — officials were trying to assess the impact of a 7.7-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra island that triggered a three-meter (10-foot) -high tsunami, killing more than 100 people and leaving scores missing.

The twin disasters happened hours apart in one of the most seismically active regions on the planet.

Officials said earlier that by closely monitoring the famously active volcano they thought they could avoid casualties, but the death toll was quickly rising.

Aris Triyono, of the national search and rescue agency, said his teams were scouring the southern slope of the mountain, which has been pounded by rocks and debris, in search of victims and survivors.

Marno, an officer at the Sardjito hospital's morgue said 28 people were killed. More than a dozen others have been hospitalized, mostly with burns, respiratory problems and other injuries.

Among the dead was Maridjan, an 83-year-old man who had been entrusted by a highly respected late king to watch over the volcano's spirits.

"We found his body," said Suseno, a member of the search and rescue team, amid reports that the old man was found in the position of praying, kneeling face-down on the floor.

Maridjan, who for years led ceremonies in which rice and flowers were thrown into the crater to appease spirits, has angered officials in the past by refusing to evacuate even during eruptions.

—

Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini, Irwan Firdaus and Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta contributed to this report.

Indonesia's volcanic eruption claims 28 lives

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23Oct/10Off

Files: Iraqi deaths higher than US count

WASHINGTON -Military documents laid bare in the biggest leak of secret information in U.S. history suggest that far more Iraqis died than previously acknowledged during the years of sectarian bloodletting and criminal violence unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The accounts of civilian deaths among nearly 400,000 purported Iraq war logs released Friday by the WikiLeaks website include deaths unknown or unreported before now — as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent research group.

The field reports from U.S. forces and intelligence officers also indicate U.S. forces often failed to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces mistreated, tortured and killed their captives as they battled a violent insurgency.

The war logs were made public in defiance of Pentagon insistence that the action puts the lives of U.S. troops and their military partners at risk.

Although the documents appear to be authentic, their origin could not be independently confirmed, and WikiLeaks declined to offer any details about them.

The 391,831 documents date from the start of 2004 to Jan. 1, 2010, providing a ground-level view of the war written mostly by low-ranking officers in the field. The dry reports, full of military jargon and acronyms, were meant to catalog "significant actions" over six years of heavy U.S. and allied military presence in Iraq.

The Pentagon has previously declined to confirm the authenticity of WikiLeaks-released records, but it has employed more than 100 U.S. analysts to review what was previously released and has never indicated that any past WikiLeaks releases were inaccurate.

Casualty figures in the U.S.-led war in Iraq have been hotly disputed because of the high political stakes in a conflict opposed by many countries and a large portion of the American public. Critics on each side of the divide accuse the other of manipulating the death toll to sway opinion.

Iraq Body Count, a private British-based group that has tracked the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war began, said it had analyzed the information and found 15,000 previously unreported deaths, which would raise its total from as many as 107,369 civilians to more than 122,000 civilians.

It said most of the newly disclosed deaths included targeted assassinations, drive-by shootings, torture, executions and checkpoint killings.

Al-Jazeera, one of several news organizations provided advance access to the WikiLeaks trove, reported the documents show 285,000 recorded casualties, including at least 109,000 deaths. Of those who died 66,000, nearly two-thirds of the total, were civilians.

The Iraqi government has issued a tally claiming at least 85,694 deaths of civilians and security officials were killed between January 2004 and Oct. 31, 2008.

In July of this year, the U.S. military quietly released its most detailed tally to date of the deaths of Iraqi civilians and security forces in the bloodiest years of the war.

That U.S. body count, reported by The Associated Press this month, tallied deaths of almost 77,000 Iraqis between January 2004 and August 2008 — the darkest chapter of Iraq's sectarian warfare and the U.S. troop surge to quell it. The new data was posted on the U.S. Central Command website without explanation.

In August 2008, the Congressional Research Service said the U.S. military was withholding statistics on Iraqi civilian deaths. The Pentagon did publish in June 2008 a chart on civilian death trends by month that showed it peaking at between 3,500 and 4,000 in December 2006. But it did not release the data used to create the chart.

In 2006 and 2007, the Bush administration and military commanders often played down the extent of civilian killings from revenge killings, blood feuds and mob-style violence in Iraq, much of which had no direct effect on U.S. forces.

Administration figures repeatedly denied Iraq was sliding into civil war. The war did not begin to turn around in a lasting way until the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops and the decision of key Sunni leaders to cut ties with the foreign-led al-Qaida terror group.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell called the release of the Iraq war material by WikiLeaks "shameful" and said it "could potentially undermine our nation's security."

"The biggest potential damage here, we think, could be to our forces," he said, "because there are now potentially 400,000 documents in the public domain for our enemies to mine, look for vulnerabilities, patterns of behavior, things they could exploit to wage attacks against us in the future."

He said that about 300 Iraqis mentioned in the documents are "particularly vulnerable to reprisal attacks" because of the documents' release and that U.S. forces in Iraq are trying to protect them.

The deputy minister for the Iraqi justice ministry, Busho Ibrahim, said he hadn't read the WikiLeaks documents but denied any abuse had taken place in Iraqi-run prisons.

WikiLeaks gave the AP a censored version of the files, with some names of people, countries and groups redacted. Fuller versions were offered to other news outlets ahead of time, according to a WikiLeaks member at London's Frontline Club, where a handful of journalists was given last-minute access before the war logs were released more widely.

WikiLeaks declined to make the less-redacted files available to the AP, saying journalists wanting such a copy would have to lodge a request with the organization, which would respond within a "couple of days." Asked why, a spokesman for the group who identified himself only as "Joseph" hung up the phone. Asked again when he appeared at the Frontline Club, he said: "I just can't answer any more questions."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

It was not immediately clear whether WikiLeaks released all the military records in its possession. In some cases, names and other pieces of identifying information appeared to have been redacted but it was unclear to what extent WikiLeaks withheld names in response to Pentagon concerns that people could become targets of retribution.

Allegations of torture and brutality by Shiite-dominated security forces — mostly against Sunni prisoners — were widely reported during the most violent years of the war, when the rival Islamic sects turned on one another in Baghdad and other cities. The leaked documents provide a ground's-eye view of abuses as reported by U.S. military personnel to their superiors and appear to corroborate much of the past reporting on such incidents.

—

Associated Press writers Raphael G. Satter and Michael Weissenstein in London, Kim Gamel in Cairo, Lynn Dombek in New York and Bushra Juhi in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Files: Iraqi deaths higher than US count

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14Oct/10Off

As Chile celebrates, mine’s future in question

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile -Chileans reveled Thursday in the stunning glory and jubilation of a record-setting mine rescue. As the celebration fades, however, several key questions await resolution.

Officials at the copper and gold mine whose collapse trapped the 33 men for more than two months still have to answer why it was allowed to operate at all.

Attention will also focus in coming days on the rescued miners themselves, their emotional scars must be tended — and, eventually, it remains to be seen how many will want to return the underground profession that nearly killed them.

President Sebastian Pinera seemed unequivocal after Wednesday's rescue about the fate of the San Jose mine.

"This mine will definitely never open again," he said after a dizzying day in which the miners were pulled up through a narrow escape chute from nearly a half-mile down in under 23 hours — far less than originally forecast.

Pinera also said the conditions that allowed the accident "will not go unpunished. Those who are responsible will have to assume their responsibility."

Pinera said the rescue would end up costing "somewhere between $10 (million) and $20 million," a third covered by private donations with the rest coming from state-owned Codelco — the country's largest company— and the government itself.

Mining accounts for 40 percent of the Chilean state's earnings and the rescue's details were run by its operations manager, Andre Sougarett.

The Aug. 5 collapse brought the 125-year-old San Jose mine's checkered safety record into focus and put Chile's top industry under close scrutiny. Many believe the collapse occurred because the mine was overworked and violated safety codes.

The families of 27 of the 33 rescued miners have sued its owners for negligence and compensatory damages.

Also suing the San Esteban company is Gino Cortez, a 40-year-old miner who lost his left leg from the knee down a month before the accident as he was leaving the mine after his shift and a rock fell on him. He contends he was hurt because the mine was short on the metallic screens that protect miners from such collapses.

Pinera said he would in the coming days be offering a new proposal for better protecting Chilean workers.

After the collapse, he fired top regulators and created a commission to investigate both the accident and the industry's Sernageomin regulatory agency. Some action was swift: the agency shut down at least 18 small mines for safety violations.

"The mine has been proven dangerous, but what's worse are the mine owners who don't offer any protection to men who work in mining," said Patricio Aguilar, 60, of nearby Copiapo, during celebrations of the meticulously executed rescue.

Advances in technology notwithstanding, mining remains a dangerous profession in the smaller mines here in northern Chile, which employ about 10,000 people.

Since 2000, about 34 people have died every year on average in mining accidents in Chile — with a high of 43 in 2008, according to Sernageomin data.

Most of the rescued miners live in Copiapo, a gritty, blue-collar city surrounded by the Acatama desert. Copiapo's central plaza was jammed with thousands of revelers watching the operation on a giant screen as street vendors hawked Chilean flags bearing the faces of "Los 33."

The last miner, shift foreman Luis Urzua, emerged from the Phoenix rescue capsule after the 2,041-foot ascent to a joyous celebration. Pinera, eyes moist with emotion, told him: "You are not the same, and the country is not the same after this. You were an inspiration."

No one is known to have survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether the men were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.

With hardhats held to their hearts, the pair led the rescue team in singing the national anthem. Broadcast by state TV, it seemed ubiquitous in small country of 16 million roiling with pride.

"Chile today is more united and stronger than ever and I think that Chile is today a country more respected and more esteemed by the world," Pinera said after chatting with Urzua on live TV about how the men endured.

The rescue exceeded expectations every step of the way. Initially, officials said it might December before the men could get out. Once the drill that opened the escape shaft pierced the men's subterranean prison, they estimated it would take 36 to 48 hours to get everyone out.

The actual time: 22 hours, 39 minutes.

The only real glitch was indeed minor — it became bit difficult as the day wore on to open and close the escape capsule's door as the day wore on, said Laurence Golborne, the mining minister who Pinera put in charge of the rescue. Early Thursday morning, the last rescuer who helped the miners into the escape capsule came up safely to end the operation.

Golborne has won high marks for his deft management of the closely scrutinized rescue, and Chilean media have been abuzz with discussion of him as Pinera's most likely successor. Elected in December 2009 to a four-year term, Pinera is constitutionally barred from running again.

Once rescued, the miners were taken to a hospital in Copiapo for observation. Initially, officials said all would be there a full 48 hours after emerging from the mine.

But Health Minister Jaime Manalich said some would probably be able to leave Thursday. First lady Cecilia Morel confirmed that to The Associated Press.

"They are being kept more as a preventative measure than to treat anything," she said. Better to be in the hospital "than at home where they could be given meat and fried pork rinds," she said.

All but a few of the men emerged in very good health, officials said.

Manalich said many had been unable to sleep, wanted to talk with families and were anxious. One was treated for pneumonia, and two needed dental work.

But it became clear that they also faced emotional challenges from their ordeal.

Dr. Guillermo Swett said miner Jimmy Sanchez, at 19, the youngest of the group and the father of a 4-month-old baby, appeared to be having a hard time adjusting and seemed depressed.

"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," Swett said.

Chile has promised to care for the miners for six months at least — until they can be sure each man has readjusted.

Psychiatrists and other experts predict their lives will be anything but normal.

Pinera said he would visit all of them in the hospital Thursday and then host them at the government palace in Santiago, the capital.

Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable mine for about $1,600 a month.

At some point, the men will need to decide whether they will return to the mines.

Many of their relatives are dead-set against it, but they also acknowledged that they probably couldn't stop the miners from going down again.

Mario Medina Mejia, a local geologist. said plenty of Chilean miners have returned underground after close calls, and he compared it to sailors who survive shipwrecks only to ply the waves again.

"If they need the work they will return to the mine," he said. "It's their life, their culture, the way they make their living."

—

Associated Press Writers Michael Warren, Franklin Briceno, Peter Prengaman, Vivian Sequera and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.

As Chile celebrates, mine's future in question

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13Oct/10Off

Fifth of 33 men rescued from Chilean mine

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile -To hugs, cheers and tears, rescuers using a missile-like escape capsule began pulling 33 men one by one to fresh air and freedom at last early Wednesday, 69 days after they were trapped in a collapsed mine a half-mile underground.

Five men were pulled out in the first five hours of the apparently problem-free operation in the Chile's Atacama desert — a drama that saw the world captivated by the miners' endurance and unity as officials meticulously prepared their rescue.

First out was Florencio Avalos, who wore sunglasses to protect him from the glare of bright lights. He smiled broadly as he emerged and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, Bairon, and wife, then got a bearhug from Chilean President Sebastian Pinera shortly after midnight local time.

A second miner, Mario Sepulveda Espina, was pulled to the surface about an hour later — his shouts heard even before the capsule surfaced. After hugging his wife, Elvira, he jubilantly handed souvenir rocks from his underground prison nearly 2,300 feet (700 meters) below to laughing rescuers.

Then he jumped up and down as if to prove his strength before the medical team took him to a triage unit.

"I think I had extraordinary luck. ... I was with God and with the devil — and God took me," Sepulveda said later in a special interview room set up by the government.

He praised the rescue operation, saying: "It's incredible that they saved us from 700 meters below."

A third Chilean miner, Juan Illanes, followed after another hour, the lone Bolivian, Carlos Mamani, was pulled out fourth, and the youngest miner, 19-year-old Jimmy Sanchez, was fifth. He was encouraged to lie down more quickly on a stretcher after sharing hugs on arrival.

Mamani was greeted by his wife, Veronica, with a hug and kiss that knocked off her white hardhat as Chile's president and first lady held small Bolivian flags. Mamani also gestured with both forefingers at his T-shirt, which said "Thank You Lord" above a Chilean flag. He shouted "Gracias, Chile!" before a round of backslapping with rescuers.

Through the first five rescues, the operation brought up a miner roughly every hour — holding to a schedule announced earlier to get all out in about 36 hours. Then, rescuers paused to lubricate the spring-loaded wheels that give the capsule a smooth ride through the hard-rock shaft.

When the last man surfaces, it promises to end a national crisis that began when 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5, sealing the men in the lower reaches of the mine.

After the first capsule came out of the manhole-sized opening, Avalos emerged as bystanders cheered, clapped and broke into a chant of "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!" — the country's name.

Avalos gave a thumbs-up as he was led to an ambulance and medical tests following his more than two months deep in the gold and copper mine — the longest anyone has ever been trapped underground and survived.

Avalos, the 31-year-old second-in-command of the miners, was chosen to be first because he was in the best condition.

Pinera later explained they had not planned for Avalos' family to join rescuers at the opening of the shaft, but that little Bairon insisted on being there.

"I told Florencio that few times have I ever seen a son show so much love for his father," the president said.

"This won't be over until all 33 are out," he added.

"Hopefully this example of the miners will stay forever with us because these miners have demonstrated ... that when Chile unifies, and we always do it in the face of adversity, we are capable of great things," Pinera said.

After he emerged, Sepulveda criticized the mine's management, saying "in terms of labor, there has to be change."

Pinera promised it would.

"This mine has had a long history of accidents and that's why this mine will not reopen while it doesn't assure and guarantee the integrity, safety and life of who work in it are clearly protected. And the same will occur with many other mines in our country," said Pinera, who ordered a review of safety regulations after the collapse.

Minutes earlier, rescue expert Manuel Gonzalez of the state copper company Codelco grinned and made the sign of the cross as he was lowered to the trapped men — apparently without incident. He was followed by Roberto Rios, a paramedic with the Chilean navy's special forces.

The last miner out has been decided: Shift foreman Luis Urzua, whose leadership was credited for helping the men endure 17 days with no outside contact after the collapse. The men made 48 hours' worth of rations last before rescuers reached them with a narrow borehole to send down more food.

Janette Marin, sister-in-law of miner Dario Segovia, said the order of rescue didn't matter.

"This won't be a success unless they all get out," she said, echoing the solidarity that the miners and people across Chile have expressed.

The paramedics can change the order of rescue based on a brief medical check once they're in the mine. First out will be those best able to handle any difficulties and tell their comrades what to expect. Then, the weakest and the ill — in this case, about 10 suffer from hypertension, diabetes, dental and respiratory infections and skin lesions from the mine's oppressive humidity. The last should be people who are both physically fit and strong of character.

Chile has taken extensive precautions to ensure the miners' privacy, using a screen to block the top of the shaft from the more than 1,000 journalists at the scene.

The rescue was carried live on all-news channels from the U.S. to Europe and the Middle East. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touched down in Beirut on his first state visit there. But the coverage was interrupted with every new miner rescued.

The miners were ushered through a tunnel built of metal containers to an ambulance for a trip of several hundred yards (meters) to a triage station for a medical check before being flown by helicopter to a hospital in Copiapo, a 10-minute ride away.

Two floors at the hospital were prepared for the miners to receive physical and psychological exams while being kept under observation in a ward as dark as a movie theater.

Relatives were urged to wait to greet the miners at home after a 48-hour hospital stay. Health Minister Jaime Manalich said no cameras or interviews will be allowed until the miners are released, unless the miners expressly desire it.

The only media allowed to record them coming out of the shaft will be a government photographer and Chile's state TV channel, whose live broadcast was delayed by 30 seconds or more to prevent the release of anything unexpected. Photographers and camera operators were on a platform more than 300 feet (90 meters) away.

The worst technical problem that could happen, rescue coordinator Andre Sougarett told The Associated Press, is that "a rock could fall," potentially jamming the capsule in the shaft.

Panic attacks are the rescuers' biggest concern. The miners aren't be sedated — they need to be alert in case something goes wrong. If a miner must get out more quickly, rescuers will accelerate the capsule to a maximum 3 meters per second, Manalich said.

The rescue is risky simply because no one else has ever tried to extract miners from such depths, said Davitt McAteer, who directed the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration in the Clinton administration.

"You can be good and you can be lucky. And they've been good and lucky," McAteer told the AP. "Knock on wood that this luck holds out for the next 33 hours."

Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, whose management of the crisis has made him a media star in Chile, said authorities had already thought of everything.

"There is no need to try to start guessing what could go wrong. We have done that job," Golborne said. "We have hundreds of different contingencies."

As for the miners, Manalich said "they're actually much more relaxed than we are."

Rescuers finished reinforcing the top of the 2,041-foot (622-meter) escape shaft Monday, and the 13-foot (four-meter) capsule descended flawlessly in tests. The capsule — the biggest of three built by Chilean navy engineers — was named Phoenix for the mythical bird that rises from ashes. It was painted in the white, blue and red of the Chilean flag.

The miners were monitored closely in the capsule. A video camera watched for panic attacks. They also had oxygen masks and two-way voice communication. Their pulse, skin temperature and respiration rate were measured by a monitor around their abdomens. To prevent blood clotting from the quick ascent, they took aspirin and wore compression socks.

They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to keep them from vomiting as the capsule rotated 10 to 12 times through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.

The miners also had sweaters for the shift in climate from about 90 degrees underground to near freezing on the surface after nightfall.

Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.

Neighbors looked forward to barbecues and parties to replace the vigils held since their friends were trapped.

Urzua's neighbors told AP he probably insisted on being the last one up.

"He's a very good guy — he keeps everybody's spirits up and is so responsible — he's going to see this through to the end," said neighbor Angelica Vicencio, who has led a nightly vigil outside the Urzua home in Copiapo.

U.S. President Barack Obama praised rescuers, who include many Americans. "While that rescue is far from over and difficult work remains, we pray that by God's grace, the miners will be able to emerge safely and return to their families soon," he said.

Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each one has readjusted.

Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal.

Since Aug. 22, when a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival, their families have been exposed in ways they never imagined. Miners had to describe their physical and mental health in detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. In some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.

—

Associated Press writers Frank Bajak and Vivian Sequera contributed to this report.

Fifth of 33 men rescued from Chilean mine

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8Oct/10Off

Chinese dissident Liu wins Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway -Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for using non-violence to demand fundamental human rights in his homeland. The award ignited a furious response from China, which accused the Norwegian Nobel Committee of violating its own principles by honoring "a criminal."

Chinese state media immediately blacked out the news and Chinese government censors blocked Nobel prize reports from Internet websites.

The Nobel committee praised Liu's pacifist approach, ignoring not-so-subtle threats by Chinese diplomats even before the announcement that such a decision would result in strained ties with Norway.

Unlike some in China's highly fractured and persecuted dissident community, the 54-year-old Liu has been an ardent advocate for peaceful, gradual political change, rather than confrontation with the government.

The committee cited Liu's participation in the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989 and the Charter 08 document he recently co-authored, which called for greater freedom in China and an end to the Communist Party's political dominance.

Liu was sentenced last year to 11 years in prison for subversion.

In Beijing, China's Foreign Ministry lashed out at the decision, saying the award should been used instead to promote international friendship and disarmament.

"Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law," the statement said. Awarding the peace prize to Liu "runs completely counter to the principle of the prize and is also a blasphemy to the peace prize."

It said the decision would damage bilateral relations between China and Norway.

In China, broadcasts of the announcement by CNN were blacked out. Popular Internet sites removed coverage of the Nobel prizes, placed prominently in recent days for the science awards. Messages about "Xiaobo" to Sina Microblog, a Twitter-like service run by Internet portal Sina.com, were quickly deleted. Attempts to send mobile text messages with the Chinese characters for Liu Xiaobo failed.

The Nobel committee said China, as a growing economic and political power, needed to take more responsibility to protect the rights of its citizens.

"China has become a big power in economic terms as well as political terms, and it is normal that big powers should be under criticism," prize committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said, calling Liu Xiaobo (LEE-o SHAo-boh) a symbol for the fight for human rights in China.

More than a dozen friends and supporters of Liu gathered near the entrance to Ditan Park in central Beijing, holding up placards congratulating Liu. They shouted "Long Live Freedom of Speech, Long Live Democracy" and wore yellow ribbons on their clothes to signify, they said, their wish that he be freed.

The small demonstration, initially undisturbed by police, pointed out the troubling status of China's dissident community. Liu is almost unknown in China except among political activists. Passersby on foot and bike did not stop, ignoring the demonstration.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told national broadcaster NRK he saw no grounds for China to punish Norway as a country for the award.

"I think that would be negative for China's reputation in the world, if they chose to do that," Stoltenberg said.

It was the first Nobel for the Chinese dissident community since it resurfaced after the country's communist leadership launched economic, but not political reforms three decades ago. The win could jolt a current debate among the leadership and the elite over whether China should begin democratic reforms and if so how quickly.

Only one other Nobel peace laureate is imprisoned: Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the 1991 prize and has been detained 15 of the past 21 years.

She is due to be released from house arrest Nov. 13, a week after Myanmar's first elections in two decades. Suu Kyi's political party won the last elections in 1990 but the ruling junta never allowed it to take power.

The Nobel citation said China's new world status must entail increased responsibility.

"China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights," it said, citing an article in China's constitution about freedom of speech and assembly. "In practice, these freedoms have proved to be distinctly curtailed for China's citizens."

The Charter 08 document called was an intentional echo of Charter 77, the famous call for human rights in then-Czechoslovakia that led to the 1989 Velvet Revolution that swept away communist rule.

"The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer," Charter 08 says.

Thousands of Chinese signed Charter 08, and the Communist Party took the document as a direct challenge.

Police arrested Liu hours before Charter 08 was due to be released in December 2008. Given a brief trial last Christmas Day, Liu was convicted of subversion for writing Charter 08 and other political tracts and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

"Through the severe punishment meted out to him, Liu has become the foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China," the award citation said.

Jagland told The Associated Press that the committee had not tried to reach the imprisoned laureate or his wife, but they would try to make contact with the Chinese Embassy in Oslo.

In a year with a record 237 nominations for the peace prize, Liu had been considered a favorite, with open support from winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and others.

When the Tibet-born Dalai Lama won the peace prize in 1989, both the Chinese government and some of the public were angry — the exiled Buddhist leader was endlessly vilified in official propaganda as a traitor for his calls for more autonomy for Tibet.

The Dalai Lama on Friday issued his public congratulations to Liu.

"I would like to take this opportunity to renew my call to the government of China to release Liu Xiaobo and other prisoners of conscience who have been imprisoned for exercising their freedom of expression" the Dalai Lama said.

The son of a soldier, Liu joined China's first wave of university students in the mid-1970s after the chaotic decade of the Cultural Revolution.

Liu's writing first took a political turn in 1988, when he became a visiting scholar in Oslo — his first time outside China.

Liu cut short a visiting scholar stint at Columbia University months later to join the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989. He and three other older activists famously persuaded students to peacefully leave the square hours before the deadly June 4 crackdown.

Liu went to prison after the crackdown and was released in early 1991 because he had repented and "performed major meritorious services," state media said at the time, without elaborating.

Still, five years later Liu was sent to a re-education camp for three years for co-writing an open letter that demanded the impeachment of then-President Jiang Zemin.

President Barack Obama won the Nobel peace prize last year.

—

Associated Press writers Bjoern H. Amland in Oslo and Cara Anna in Beijing contributed to this report.

Chinese dissident Liu wins Nobel Peace Prize

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30Sep/10Off

NC Patrol: 3, not 5, killed in wreck on wet road

RALEIGH, N.C. -The North Carolina Highway Patrol says three people were killed when the sport utility vehicle they were traveling in skidded off a rain-slicked road and tumbled into a ditch filled with water.

State Highway Patrol Trooper Gary Edwards said troopers initially reported five people were killed because two children, 2-year-old twins, did not have a pulse when emergency workers arrived on scene. But the children survived and were being treated late Thursday afternoon.

Edwards said the family of five from Atlanta was traveling westbound on U.S. 64 east of Creswell around 12:20 p.m. Thursday when their Jeep hit a patch of standing water, hydroplaned and skidded off the highway into the ditch.

Creswell is approximately 145 miles east of Raleigh.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — Five people were killed Thursday when a vehicle skidded off a road that had been slicked by a massive rainstorm that drenched the East Coast, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said.

The storm flooded parts of coastal North Carolina, driving some people from their homes, and snarled train, air and car traffic in the Northeast. Tornado watches extended from the Outer Banks to New Jersey. State Highway Patrol Sgt. J.E. Brewer said five people were in the car that wrecked in Creswell, about 145 miles east of Raleigh. The car hit a patch of standing water, hydroplaned and skidded into a ditch, Brewer said.

The hardest rain fell in North Carolina, where Jacksonville picked up 12 inches of rain — nearly a quarter of its typical annual rainfall — in the six hours between 3:30 and 9:30 a.m.

The rain was part of a system moving ahead of the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole, which dissipated over the Straits of Florida on Wednesday.

"This more like what you'd expect from a tropical system. But this is not a tropical system. It's just a storm with a deep feed coming straight off the Atlantic," said Hal Austin, a meteorologist with the weather service's Newport, N.C., office.

Much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast were starting to move into a drought after the dry summer. But the early fall storm spread several inches of rain across the region.

Farmers in northern New England rejoiced. Erin Bickford of Walpole, N.H., said the deluge was a welcome sight for her eight acres of vegetables. She said she hoped the moisture would recharge wells that went dry in the town.

"We had almost no rain at all. Often, we could see it raining across the river, but it didn't come here. It was just dust. Even if it did rain, it would be a tiny bit, maybe half an inch," she said.

Crews throughout the northeast worked to pull fallen leaves from storm drains. Schools in North Carolina were closed and some farther north planned to cancel classes Friday so students wouldn't have to travel on flooded roads.

Josh Barnello, 12, took advantage of his day off to take a look at a pond that overflowed its banks in Carolina Beach.

"Someone was paddling a canoe down the street earlier," said Barnello, a budding meteorologist who used a wind speed gauge he got for Christmas to record gusts of 53 mph near his house.

Forecasters expected those heavy winds to spread up the coast, possibly toppling trees and power lines made unstable by the saturated ground.

The winds were also churning up big waves that were eating away at a "living shoreline" of rocks, sand and grasses built this year on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, said Bob Gilbert from his waterfront home in Churchton, about 10 miles south of Annapolis.

"There's not a boat in sight," Gilbert said. "The waves are really choppy and nasty-looking."

The rain caused numerous accidents Thursday. In Maryland, authorities said 26 people, including high school students, were hurt after a Metro bus rear-ended another bus from the Washington-area transit system in pouring rain.

Standing waters and fallen limbs on tracks slowed several Amtrak trains, while some Northeast airports reported flight delays of up to three hours.

Wilmington, N.C., got a brief break from the rain Thursday morning, but the downpours quickly moved back in. Back-to-back storms have dropped a third of the rain the city usually gets all year in just five days. The 21 inches collected since Sunday was the highest five day total in nearly 140 years of records, topping Hurricane Floyd's mark of 19 inches set in 1999, the National Weather Service said.

The rain caused some scatted evacuations across the state, but no major damage.

"I have to walk through an inch of water to get from the living room to the bathroom," said Sheila Mezroud. Sandbags only kept the floodwaters out of her Carolina Beach home for a short time.

In New York City, the rain didn't cause too many problems beyond wet shoes for the morning commute.

"I think we're expecting pretty bad weather later on," said Allen Saunders, a financial adviser who travels to Manhattan from Melville. I'll probably leave work a little early."

—

Associated Press writers Skip Foreman in Raleigh, N.C.; Jim Fitzgerald, Deepti Hajela and Frank Eltman in New York; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C.; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; and Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

NC Patrol: 3, not 5, killed in wreck on wet road

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25Sep/10Off

Pakistani plane lands in Sweden after bomb threat

STOCKHOLM -A Pakistan International Airlines jet carrying 273 people bound from Toronto to Karachi landed Saturday in Stockholm after Canadian authorities received a tip that a man on the plane was carrying explosives, airport and police officials said.

The Boeing 777 landed safely at Stockholm's Arlanda airport and was parked at a ramp away from the terminals as Swedish police prepared to board the aircraft and remove the man.

"We are not evacuating the plane," Stockholm police spokeswoman Sussie Illum said. "We are going in to apprehend this person."

Another police spokesman, Janne Hedlund, said the suspect was a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin.

"He is not on any list (of people banned from flying) and he's been through the security check in Canada," Hedlund said. "We're in contact with the pilot. Everything is calm on board."

Bomb technicians were heading to the scene but police didn't see an immediate need to evacuate because the plane and the passengers had cleared security checks in Toronto.

The plane was on its way from Toronto to Karachi, Pakistan, when the pilot requested permission to land in Stockholm, Arlanda airport spokesman Anders Bredfell said. The airport remained open to air traffic.

In Pakistan, a spokesman for state-run Pakistan International Airlines confirmed the incident involved flight PK782 to Karachi.

"The plane has landed at the Stockholm airport due to security reasons, airline spokesman Sultan Hassan said.

Calls to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada's public safety department were not immediately returned.

—

Associated Press Writers Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Pakistan, and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS spelling of Bredfell.)

Pakistani plane lands in Sweden after bomb threat

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17Sep/10Off

Dems to voters: You may hate us, but GOP is worse

WASHINGTON -With just six weeks to avoid a possible election catastrophe, Democrats are trying to limit the damage with a closing argument that's more plea than platform: We know you voters are furious with us, but just let us explain why the Republicans would be worse.

The strategy requires an autumn influx of voters willing to view the election as a choice between two imperfect parties — and imperfect candidates on each ballot line — rather than as a chance to slap the Washington establishment that the public seems to dislike so deeply.

But the Democrats admit the Republicans have a big emotional advantage with voters who are fed up with high unemployment, soaring deficits and what many see as an arrogant Congress and administration that rammed a revolutionary health care plan down their throats.

If voters keep burning with the throw-the-bums-out fever that animated so many primaries, Democrats would be likely to lose more than 40 House seats, costing them the majority and positioning Republicans to block virtually any Obama initiatives in the next two years. Losing the Senate majority, which would require a 10-seat Republican gain, is less likely.

Democratic candidates want to convince these voters that no matter how much they hate the status quo, they would be worse off under a Republican Party that hasn't learned from its mistakes and is lurching ever harder to the right.

"This needs to be a choice, not a referendum" on the Democratic-led Congress and Obama administration, said Erik Smith, a Democratic campaign adviser.

President Barack Obama, campaigning for a Senate contender in Connecticut Thursday, said of Republicans: "All they are going to be feeding us is anger and resentment and not a lot of new ideas. But that's a potent force when people are scared and they're hurting."

Democrats already have given up on keeping several seats, including a House seat in Tennessee and a Senate seat in North Dakota. Party insiders aren't quite in full panic mode. But they are intensely debating how to frame the final message, which candidates to help with last-minute spending, and where to best focus ground troops.

Senate campaign officials said they have made no final decisions about how to allocate money, but Democrat Brad Ellsworth is no longer airing TV ads in his bid to hold the Indiana Senate seat left open by retiring Democrat Evan Bayh. Republican nominee Dan Coats leads in polls there.

Ellsworth spokeswoman Liz Farrar said her campaign will resume TV ads at some point. "Voters in Indiana have not seen or heard the last of Brad Ellsworth," she said.

Eric Schultz of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee would not discuss aid to Ellsworth, but he said, "We have to make a lot of spending decisions in the next 45 days."

For Democratic House candidates, triage is already under way. The Washington-based party headquarters recently cut off aid to Brett Carter, seen as having little chance to hold the Tennessee House seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon.

Financial reports show House and Senate candidates have raised nearly $1.2 billion in this election cycle, well ahead of the pace for previous contests. Overall, Democratic and Republican candidates have raised nearly equal amounts. But the Democratic Party, including its state affiliates, has a 3-2 fundraising advantage over the GOP and its affiliates.

Helping close the gap is a web of conservative groups that have spent millions of dollars to help Republican candidates. Among the most prominent is American Crossroads and its allied groups, created under the direction of former Bush political strategist Karl Rove and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie.

What's more, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce aims to spend up to $75 million on the election, mostly for Republicans.

Organized labor plans to spend $100 million or more for Democrats. The AFL-CIO has pledged to spend more than $50 million, and the Service Employees International Union has a $44 million political budget. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is also pledging millions to assist Democrats, has been airing ads in key battlegrounds.

In a possible bright spot for Democrats, national party officials say they will spend $50 million for on-the-ground organizing, sending out volunteers to contact voters and targeting "persuadable" people. That includes 15 million to 20 million who voted for the first time in 2008, when Obama inspired many young and minority voters.

GOP House campaign spokesman Paul Lindsay says that every poll shows far more intensity among Republican voters than Democrats, so his party may not need to pour as much money into labor-intensive get-out-the-vote efforts.

Obama remains a relatively popular president, certainly compared to Congress, and he recently transferred $4.5 million from his presidential campaign account to Democratic House, Senate and gubernatorial efforts. He plans campaign stops in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada, all of which have competitive Senate and/or gubernatorial races.

National Democratic officials, meanwhile, are sparring over how best to frame their argument in the final six weeks. A chief dispute is how to respond to the tea party's remarkable success, capped by Tuesday's Delaware Senate Republican primary. Insurgent Christine O'Donnell stunned political pros by defeating longtime lawmaker Mike Castle, a moderate.

Veteran Democratic consultant Chris Kofinis was drafting a memo Friday urging candidates and party officials to boost their efforts to portray the GOP as a party hijacked by extremists with unorthodox ideas such as dismantling Social Security. Democratic candidates should woo two crucial groups — persuadable independents and disillusioned liberals — by highlighting the threat of "a radical, extreme fringe that will control and does control the Republican Party," Kofinis said in an interview.

So far, Obama and other top Democrats are sticking more closely to a different theme: If voters return Republicans to power, they say, it will bring back Bush administration policies that led to the financial near-collapse of 2008-2009. This past-is-prologue warning depicts veteran Republican lawmakers, such as House Minority Leader John Boehner, as unrepentant Bush loyalists and entrenched lackeys of wealthy special interest groups.

Obama likes to warn voters against returning the government's car keys to those who "drove us into the ditch" in the first place.

Kofinis thinks the tea party gives Democrats a better, more forward-looking opening. "I don't think the Bush argument works," he said. "No one knows who Boehner is."

Democratic candidates should marry the two messages, not choose between them, says Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who oversees the party's efforts to win House seats. Tea party nominees, he said, "represent Bush economic policy on steroids."

Establishment Republicans such as Boehner already want to loosen regulations on Wall Street, the workplace and other areas, Van Hollen said. Libertarian-leaning tea party activists will push them even further.

Matt Bennett, vice president of the Democratic-leaning group Third Way, cites polls showing that most voters, despite an overall anger with the establishment, support Democrats on many specific issues, such as tax cuts for the wealthy. Democratic House and Senate candidates, he said, should constantly tell voters "there's only two choices, there's no other."

Specific issues will hardly matter, however, if Democrats can't persuade middle-of-the-road voters to calmly weigh the ramifications of lashing out at the party in power.

"The most important thing Democrats can do is unnationalize the election," said Democratic strategist David DiMartino. "In every state and every district, it has to be a choice between them and us. Our policies are more popular than theirs."

—

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Liz Sidoti contributed to this report.

Dems to voters: You may hate us, but GOP is worse

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29Aug/10Off

W.Va. Gov. Manchin wins Dem primary for US Senate

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -Popular Gov. Joe Manchin won the Democratic nomination Saturday and will face GOP primary winner and wealthy businessman John Raese in the race to fill the Senate seat vacated by the late Robert C. Byrd.

Raese defeated a crowded field of Republicans and becomes part of the GOP quest to dismantle the Democratic Senate majority, which they are clinging to as high unemployment and the slow economic recovery take a toll on their political prospects this fall.

In Louisiana, scandal-tainted Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter appeared poised for an easy primary victory over two little-known challengers. He has already been more focused on his likely November matchup with Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, who also had two primary opponents.

Vitter survived a 2007 prostitution scandal after he admitted an unspecified "serious sin" after his phone number appeared in the records of a Washington prostitution ring. He has also shrugged off fresh questions about his judgment in allowing an aide to remain on his staff for more than two years after a violent attack on a woman police identified as his ex-girlfriend.

With little competition from his own party, he and Melancon are engaged in a war of attack ads.

The campaign manager for Vitter's best-known primary opponent, retired state Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor, says Republicans encouraged Traylor to get into the race because they feared another scandal was lurking. But Vitter appeared strong against him and little-known Republican Nick Accardo.

The primary in West Virginia was hastily called after Byrd, a 92-year-old Democrat elected to a record ninth term in 2006, died June 28. The state Legislature decided on a primary date about two weeks later and gave candidates just four days to register and about a month to campaign.

Manchin's support from coal and utility industries — which have provided more than a quarter of the $1.2 million he has raised since declaring his candidacy last month — may help him overcome national GOP attempts to paint him as a liberal who will side with President Barack Obama's administration.

Obama lost West Virginia in 2008, and his energy and environmental policies are deemed anti-coal in the nation's second-largest coal producing state. Democrats desperately need to hold the Senate seat in West Virginia, a state that Republican nominee John McCain won handily with 56 percent of the vote.

The 60-year-old Raese, who lost to Byrd in 2006, has been pumping money into a television and radio ad campaign to bolster his name recognition and to declare he won't be a rubber stamp for Obama's agenda.

Raese owns a steel fabricating business, a limestone company and is part owner of a statewide radio network and Morgantown newspaper. He defeated recent U.S. House candidate Mac Warner and a pool of unknowns including a cement contractor, a certified public accountant, a substitute teacher's aide, a gas company supervisor, a lawyer and a few retirees.

Mountain Party candidate Jesse Johnson is also vying for the seat in November.

—

Associated Press Writer Kevin McGill in New Orleans contributed to this report.

W.Va. Gov. Manchin wins Dem primary for US Senate

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20Aug/10Off

Arizona fugitive and fiancee arrested at campsite

PHOENIX -An unattended campfire and a suspicious forest ranger led to the arrest of two of the most wanted fugitives in the U.S., ending a three-week nationwide manhunt that drew hundreds of false sightings, authorities said.

John McCluskey fled July 30 with two other inmates from a private prison in northwest Arizona and evaded authorities in at least six states before being caught Thursday evening just 300 miles east of the prison.

Authorities arrested McCluskey, 45, and his alleged accomplice Casslyn Welch, 44, at a campsite in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in eastern Arizona.

Welch, who is McCluskey's fiancee and cousin, reached for a weapon but dropped it when she realized she was outgunned by a swarming SWAT team, said David Gonzales, U.S. marshal for Arizona.

Officers apprehended McCluskey without incident after finding him lying in a sleeping bag outside a tent. He told authorities he had a gun in his tent and would have shot them if he had been able to reach for it.

It was a peaceful close to a manhunt that authorities had said was likely to end in a bloody shootout between officers and desperate outlaws who fancied themselves as a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.

"The nightmare that began July 30 is finally over," Gonzales said.

The fugitives' ruse began to crumble about 4 p.m. Thursday when a U.S. Forest Service ranger investigated what appeared to be an unattended campfire, Gonzales said. He found a silver Nissan Sentra backed suspiciously into the trees as if someone were trying to hide it.

The ranger had a brief conversation with McCluskey, who appeared nervous and fidgety. A SWAT team and surveillance unit surrounded the campsite and swarmed on the fugitives, Gonzales said.

McCluskey told officers he wishes he would have shot the forest ranger when he had the opportunity, authorities said.

McCluskey and Welch were being held in the Apache County Jail in St. Johns.

A photo released by authorities showed McCluskey wearing dirty blue jeans and no shirt with an "Arizona" tattoo across his chest.

"I hope the citizens of Arizona and the nation can rest easier this evening," said state Corrections Department Director Charles Ryan.

Authorities will spend Friday combing the campsite looking for any evidence that could link the fugitives to other crimes during their time on the lam.

Gonzales said investigators looked into 700 tips from nearly every state in a manhunt that had officers swarming into small towns from Montana to Arkansas. Authorities said the trail had gone cold since McCluskey and Welch were last seen Aug. 6 in Billings, Mont.

It's unclear how long they were in Arizona, but Gonzales said authorities suspected they might return to the state they know best.

Corrections officials have said that Welch helped McCluskey and fellow inmates Tracy Province and Daniel Renwick escape from the private prison near Kingman by cutting through a security fence.

Renwick was recaptured in Rifle, Colo., on Aug. 1, and Province was found in Meeteetse, Wyo., on Aug. 9.

Renwick and Province were serving time for murder. McCluskey was serving a 15-year prison term for attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm.

Province, McCluskey and Welch have been linked to the slayings of Greg and Linda Haas of Tecumseh, Okla., whose burned bodies were found in a travel trailer Aug. 4 on a remote ranch near Santa Rosa, N.M. They had been traveling to Colorado on an annual camping trip.

Officials said the stolen car found Thursday at the Arizona campsite had New Mexico license plates stolen around the time the Haases were killed.

"That's the best news we've had in 10 days. Everybody just broke down and cried for a little bit," Sheila Walker, one of the Haases' best friends, told The Associated Press late Thursday. "That was the one thing we wanted to hear."

The family was grateful that their prayers had been answered and that no one else was hurt during the hunt for the fugitive and his accomplice.

"That was one of our main fears, that they would get desperate and someone else would get hurt," Walker said. "We are just thrilled they are back behind bars."

The arrests came hours after officials discussed a report that outlined a series of embarrassing security breakdowns that allowed the escape.

The prison has a badly defective alarm system, a perimeter post was unstaffed, an outside dormitory door had been propped open with a rock and the alarms went off so often that prison personnel often just ignored them, the report said. Also, operational practices often led to a gap of 15 minutes or longer during shift changes along the perimeter fence, Ryan said.

Prison staff told a review team that the dormitory door was left open because of the heavy amount of foot traffic. That open door allowed the three inmates to reach a 10-foot chain-linked fence that hadn't been topped with razor wire. They scaled that fence and hid out for a time behind a building in an area that isn't visible to staff from the yard.

Using wire cutters, which Welch tossed into the prison yard shortly before the 9 p.m. shift change, the inmates cut a 30-by-22-inch hole and held the fence back with a dog leash.

—

Associated Press writers Walter Berry, Felicia Fonseca and Paul Davenport in Phoenix; and Tim Korte and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M. contributed.

Arizona fugitive and fiancee arrested at campsite

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18Aug/10Off

Jury deadlocks on all but 1 charge against Blago

CHICAGO -A federal jury deadlocked Tuesday on all but one of 24 charges against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, including the most explosive of all — that he tried to sell an appointment to President Barack Obama's old Senate seat. Blagojevich was convicted on a single, less serious count of lying to federal agents.

Prosecutors pledged to retry the case as soon as possible.

"This jury shows you that the government threw everything but the kitchen sink at me," Blagojevich said outside court. "They could not prove I did anything wrong — except for one nebulous charge from five years ago."

But three jurors said the panel was deadlocked 11-1 in favor of convicting Blagojevich on more serious charges. Two of those jurors said those counts included trying to auction off the Senate seat.

Juror Erik Sarnello of Itasca, Ill., said one woman on the jury "just didn't see what we all saw." Sarnello said the counts involving the Senate seat were "the most obvious."

Other jurors tried to persuade the holdout to reconsider, but "at a certain point, there was no changing," he said. Said fellow juror Stephen Wlodek, "In the end, based on what happened today, the people of the state just did not have justice served."

That so many jurors were convinced of Blagojevich's guilt bodes well for prosecutors, said Joel Levin, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago who helped win a conviction of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan on corruption charges.

"At the end of the day it signals very strongly they will get a conviction next time," Levin said. "It sounds like the case was lost in jury selection."

Blagojevich — known for his showmanlike, over-the-top personality — showed no emotion as the verdict was read. Before jurors came in, he sat with his hands folded, looking down and picking nervously at his fingernails. He and his lawyer said they would appeal the conviction.

The verdict came on the 14th day of deliberations, ending an 11-week trial during which a foul-mouthed Blagojevich was heard on secret FBI wiretap tapes saying the power to name a senator was "(expletive) golden" and that he wasn't going to give it up "for (expletive) nothing."

The count on which Blagojevich was convicted included accusations that he lied to federal agents when he said he did not track campaign contributions. But the jury did not convict him on a related allegation that he kept a "firewall" between political campaigns and government work. It carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. Some of the more serious charges, such as racketeering, carried up to a 20-year penalty.

Blagojevich vowed to appeal the single conviction and declared he was a victim of persecution by the federal government. He told reporters that he wants the "people of Illinois to know that I did not lie to the FBI."

It had been clear jurors were struggling with the case. Last week, they told Judge James B. Zagel they had reached a unanimous decision on just two counts and had not even considered 11 others.

Jury foreman James Matsumoto said while he voted to convict Blagojevich and his brother on all counts, he knew from the first day of deliberations that the jury would have trouble coming to unanimous agreement.

"It was a very arduous process," Matsumoto said. "Some people looked at it and said, 'He was only talking.'"

Both Matsumoto and Sarnello bemoaned the complex case presented by prosecutors, and Matsumoto urged prosecutors to simplify their case during the retrial.

Jurors appeared more haggard Tuesday than during the trial. As they filed into the courtroom, many appeared nervous, some looking down at the floor as Zagel read the verdict form to himself, then passed it to a bailiff. They had asked earlier Tuesday for advice on filling out their verdict forms and a copy of the oath they took before deliberating.

The former governor's brother and co-defendant, Robert Blagojevich, said the jury's conclusion showed he's been "an innocent target of the federal government" all along.

"I feel strong. I feel confident. I don't feel in any way deterred. I've done nothing wrong," he told reporters at the courthouse. "I've got ultimate confidence in my acquittal."

Defense attorneys had argued that Rod Blagojevich was a big talker, but never committed a crime. They took a huge gamble by deciding not to call any witnesses — including Blagojevich, who had repeatedly promised to take the stand.

Zagel set a hearing for Aug. 26 to decide manner and timing of the retrial, which could unfold at the height of the fall campaign.

When Zagel said he would give prosecutors time to decide whether to take Blagojevich to court again, prosecutor Reid Schar spoke up instantly — almost appearing to cut the judge off.

"It is absolutely our intention to retry this," the normally reserved prosecutor said sternly, looking momentarily agitated.

While Blagojevich showed little emotion, his wife Patti seemed close to tears — shutting her eyes before the verdict and exhaling slowly to keep her composure. Just before the verdict, she pulled out two knitting needles and began working on what appeared to be a sweater.

For most of the trial, the 53-year-old Blagojevich, a perpetual campaigner and recent reality TV star, seemed cheerful. He often glided through the courthouse smiling and chatting with passers-by.

His demeanor was in contrast to his older brother, a Nashville, Tenn., businessman, who was often subdued and walked to court alone.

As he left the courthouse, Blagojevich got a huge round of applause from the courthouse crowd.

Leota Johnson, 72, of Chicago, chanted "Rod is free!" Johnson said she supports Blagojevich because she isn't convinced he did anything wrong and that pay-for-play is Chicago politics as usual.

During the trial, prosecutors relied heavily on the FBI wiretaps, in which Blagojevich spewed profanity and speculated about getting a Cabinet job in exchange for the Senate appointment. Several witnesses also testified that they felt pressured to donate money to Blagojevich's campaign in exchange for favorable state action.

"I found it offensive," Matsumoto said. "When he spends his time not doing the things a governor should do, and talks about people as if we're nothing more than someone that should vote for him or contribute to his campaign fund, it's very troubling."

Blagojevich's trial was another chapter in Illinois' history of crooked politics. His predecessor, George Ryan, was convicted of racketeering in 2006 and is serving a 6 1/2-year-sentence.

Some had feared the trial could harm Democrats as the party geared up for tough elections this fall.

Blagojevich's attorneys had plastered Washington and Illinois with subpoenas — including White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — but by the end of the trial, none of them had testified, sparing Democrats any potentially embarrassing testimony.

—

Associated Press writers Karen Hawkins, Serena Dai, Deanna Bellandi, Carla K. Johnson and Caryn Rousseau contributed to this report.

Jury deadlocks on all but 1 charge against Blago

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15Aug/10Off

8 shot, 4 fatally, outside Buffalo, NY, restaurant

BUFFALO, N.Y. -Eight people leaving a party at a downtown Buffalo restaurant were shot early Saturday, four of them fatally, including a Texas man who had returned to his hometown to celebrate his first wedding anniversary, police said.

Managers had decided to close the City Grill in the city's business district after an altercation inside. The victims were leaving at about 2:30 a.m. when a man who had been inside began shooting, police said.

"There were verbal things going on. Management apparently chose to close down and have everybody leave the restaurant," Chief of Detectives Dennis Richards said. "People were leaving when this shooting happened."

Keith Johnson, 25, of Buffalo was charged Saturday afternoon with four counts of second-degree murder and could face more charges. Johnson was in custody late Saturday afternoon and unavailable for comment.

Police didn't know whether Johnson was involved in the earlier altercation and asked witnesses to speak up.

"We need people to come forward," said Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda, who estimated there were 100 people at the scene when police arrived.

The group was attending a party in advance of a more formal anniversary celebration scheduled for later Saturday, authorities said. The couple, Danyell Mackin, 30, and his wife, Tanisha, married in Texas a year ago and had returned to celebrate with Buffalo-area friends and family, authorities said. Tanisha Mackin was not hurt.

"An occasion that should have been a joyous one, a happy one, turned tragic," Mayor Byron Brown said Saturday near the restaurant, a popular stop for office workers during the week and people attending theater and sporting events at night.

The Mackins, who grew up in the same neighborhood, had been friends since they were 13 and started dating in 2001, according to a website created to commemorate their marriage and provide details about the celebration.

The couple, known as "Dee" and "Tee," have a 6-year-old son, Danyell Jr., and a 7-month-old daughter, Destinee, who was scheduled to be christened on Sunday, the website said. The family had moved from Buffalo to Austin, Texas, in 2006, and the Mackins worked for a local bank.

The reception was to be held at a community center in Buffalo, and the couple said online that it was "dedicated to the people who meant so much to us and that we lost."

Police identified the other three victims as Willie McCaa III, 26; Shawnita McNeil, 27; and Tiffany Wilhite, 32.

"A senseless, random killing," said Wilhite's father, Raymond Wilhite, who returned to the restaurant a few hours after the shooting. "This kind of thing just has to stop."

McNeil was Wilhite's cousin.

"There's no words to explain how I feel," McNeil's mother, Ruby Martin, said. "She got along with everybody. She knows a lot of people. She didn't deserve to be killed. I'm pretty sure it wasn't intended for her."

Demario Vass, 30, remained in critical condition Saturday night, police spokesman Michael DeGeorge said. Two men, James Robb Jr., 27, and Shamar Davis, 30, were in stable condition. And 27-year-old Tillman Ward, who was shot in the elbow, was in good condition.

Tommy Dates, 35, of Buffalo, said he was at the bar area of the restaurant with his friends when he noticed a party had broken up. He said people started leaving the restaurant but rushed back inside a few minutes later.

"A lot of people were real upset, just trying to get out of the way," Dates said at the scene about two hours after the shootings. "Everyone was in a panic."

Johnson lives in a two-family house about six miles from the restaurant, near the University of Buffalo's south campus. No one responded to a knock on his door Saturday night, and a woman who answered the door of the other family's home said he lives with his mother and that she also left with police when Johnson was taken into custody.

The restaurant posted a statement on its website Saturday expressing condolences to the victims and their families.

"We at City Grill are deeply saddened by the tragic events," the statement said.

Three covered bodies lay in front of the restaurant for several hours, one of them on the sidewalk across the street. About 20 people stood behind yellow crime scene tape, some trying to console grief-stricken relatives and friends.

"It was horrible seeing members of our community lying in the street," the mayor said.

The window of an office next to the Main Street restaurant was shattered, as was glass at a light-rail stop across the street.

"Nobody knows why," Martin said. "Somebody else was just shooting in a crowd."

—

Associated Press Writer Ben Dobbin contributed to this report.

8 shot, 4 fatally, outside Buffalo, NY, restaurant

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13Aug/10Off

Tylenol use linked to asthma, other allergies in teens

By Jenifer Goodwin
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Teens from around the world who regularly take acetaminophen, best known as Tylenol, were more than twice as likely to have asthma as teens who never take the over-the-counter pain and fever reducer, new research finds.

Taking acetaminophen was also linked to an increased chance of eczema and rhinoconjunctivitis, or allergic nasal congestion, in adolescents.

Because the study was epidemiological -- meaning researchers asked teens to report after-the-fact how often they took acetaminophen -- researchers said they can't prove that acetaminophen helps cause asthma.

But the study is one of several in recent years that has linked acetaminophen usage during pregnancy or childhood to an increased risk of developing asthma.

"We cannot assume causation, but the association was found in widely different communities, with widely different patterns of illness and lifestyles," said study author Dr. Richard Beasley, a professor of medicine at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand. "When you put it together with all of the other studies, clearly there is [cause for concern]."

Nearly 323,000 children between the ages of 13 and 14 who were participating in the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood answered questionnaires about their use of acetaminophen and history of wheezing, nasal congestion and recurrent, itchy rashes.

"Medium" users of acetaminophen were those who had taken the drug at least once during the prior year; "high" users were those who reported taking acetaminophen at least once a month for the past year.

The risk of having asthma was nearly 2.5 times higher among frequent users, and 43 percent higher among medium users than those who never took acetaminophen.

Frequent users of acetaminophen were also more than twice as likely to have rhinoconjunctivitis as kids who never too the drug, while medium users had a 38 percent greater risk. For eczema, frequent users had a 99 percent increased risk, while medium users had a 31 percent increased risk.

The study also found an association with frequency of use and severity of asthma symptoms. Frequent users of acetaminophen were 2.75 times as likely to say their wheezing was so bad it disturbed their sleep and limited their ability to speak, Beasley said.

The study will be published Aug. 13 on the American Thoracic Society's Web site and will later appear in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Marc Boston, a spokesman for McNeil Consumer HealthCare, which makes Tylenol, said in a statement that "there are no prospective, randomized controlled studies that show a causal link between acetaminophen and asthma."

He also noted that "the authors of this [new] study also published data in the September 2008 edition of The Lancet. In the press release that accompanied that data, they stated that, 'international asthma guidelines recommend that for both children and adults with asthma, [acetaminophen] is the preferred drug to relieve pain or fever.'"

A second study in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, conducted among children in Ethiopia, also found a link between acetaminophen use and asthma, but not eczema.

Researchers followed some 1,065 women during pregnancy and for three years after their child was born. Between ages 1 and 3, about 7.7 percent of children had experienced wheezing.

Children who had taken one to three tablets of acetaminophen in the past month were 88 percent more likely to have asthma, while children who had taken four tablets were more than seven times more likely to have asthma.

"These two studies further contribute to what appears to be mounting evidence of an association between acetaminophen and asthma and potentially other allergic diseases," said Matthew Perzanowski, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

So what should parents do?

Experts said a link between ibuprofen, another over-the-counter pain and fever reducer, and asthma has not been reported. Yet experts continue to recommend acetaminophen for asthmatic children, Beasley said, because in some asthmatics, ibuprofen may bring on or worsen asthma symptoms.

"Acetaminophen is still the preferred drug for children to take who have asthma. Its safety profile is better than ibuprofen, and our findings don't change that," Beasley said.

Yet limiting the use of acetaminophen is probably a wise idea, said Dr. Andy Nish, an allergist at the Allergy and Asthma Care Center in Gainesville, Ga.

"My personal opinion is it would be reasonable, particularly in families that had the tendency toward allergic diseases such as asthma, hay fever and eczema, to use acetaminophen judiciously, and perhaps consider the use of an alternative," Nish said.

Young children should not be given aspirin, he noted.

Researchers believe acetaminophen may impact the development of asthma by altering the body's immune response. Previous studies have suggested that acetaminophen may lower levels of glutathione in the lungs, which is involved in detoxifying the body, Perzanowski said. Other research has found that children with asthma have lower levels of glutathione in the lungs than those without asthma.

Asthma rates have been climbing in developed nations over the last 30 years, leading researchers to wonder what about the modern Western world could be contributing. Previous research found using acetaminophen during the first year of life increased the chances of having asthma at age 6 or 7.

Beasley, Perzanowski and other experts said the next step is conducting a randomized, controlled trial -- the gold standard of medical studies -- to see if acetaminophen really is the cause.

But there remain other possible explanations for the asthma-acetaminophen link. Children who have asthma or who will go on to receive an asthma diagnosis may develop more colds and respiratory illnesses, or may seem to have worse colds, than other kids, Perzanowski said. Colds can cause fever, which may prompt parents to give acetaminophen.

Frequency of acetaminophen use varied among countries, with only 2 percent of children in Taiwan taking it more than once a month, while 68 percent of kids in Nigeria did.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on asthma.

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28Jul/10Off

Judge blocks parts of Arizona immigration law

PHOENIX -A federal judge stepped into the fight over Arizona's immigration law at the last minute Wednesday, blocking the heart of the measure and defusing a confrontation between police and thousands of activists that had been building for months.

Coming just hours before the law was to take effect, the ruling isn't the end.

It sets up a lengthy legal battle that could end up before the Supreme Court — ensuring that a law that reignited the immigration debate, inspired similar measures nationwide, created fodder for political campaigns and raised tensions with Mexico will stay in the spotlight.

Protesters who gathered at the state Capitol and outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City cheered when they heard the news. The governor, the law's authors and anti-illegal immigration groups vowed to fight on.

"It's a temporary bump in the road," Gov. Jan Brewer said.

The key issue before U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in the case is as old as the nation itself: Does federal law trump state law? She indicated in her ruling that the federal government's case has a good chance at succeeding.

The Clinton appointee said the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues, including parts that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.

In her preliminary injunction, Bolton delayed provisions that required immigrants to carry their papers and banned illegal immigrants from soliciting employment in public places — a move aimed at day laborers.

The judge also blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants for crimes that can lead to deportation.

"Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked," Bolton wrote.

The ruling came just as police were making last-minute preparations to begin enforcement of the law and protesters, many of whom said they would not bring identification, were planning large demonstrations against the measure.

At least one group had planned to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them about their immigration status.

"I knew the judge would say that part of the law was just not right," said Gisela Diaz, 50, from Mexico City, who came to Arizona on a since-expired tourist visa in 1989 and who waited with her family early Wednesday at the Mexican Consulate to get advice about the law.

"It's the part we were worried about. This is a big relief for us," she said.

At a Home Depot in west Phoenix, where day-laborers gather to look for work, Carlos Gutierrez said he was elated when a stranger drove by and yelled the news: "They threw out the law! You guys can work!"

"I felt good inside" said the 32-year-old illegal immigrant, who came here six years ago from Sonora, Mexico, and supports his wife and three children. "Now there's a way to stay here with less problems."

Opponents argued the law will lead to racial profiling, conflict with federal immigration law and distract local police from fighting more serious crimes. The U.S. Justice Department, civil rights groups and a Phoenix police officer asked for Wednesday's injunction.

Lawyers for the state contend the law was a constitutionally sound attempt by Arizona to assist federal immigration agents and lessen border woes, such as the heavy costs for educating, jailing and providing health care for illegal immigrants.

They said Arizona shouldn't have to suffer from a broken immigration system when it has 15,000 officers who can arrest illegal immigrants.

In her ruling, Bolton said the interests of Arizona, the busiest U.S. gateway for illegal immigrants, match those of the federal government. But, she wrote, that the federal government must take the lead on deciding how to enforce immigration laws.

The core of the government's case is that federal immigration law trumps state law — an issue known as "pre-emption" in legal circles. In her ruling, Bolton pointed out five portions of the law where she believed the federal government would likely succeed on its claims.

Justice Department spokeswoman Hannah August said the agency understands the frustration of Arizona residents with the immigration system, but added that a patchwork of state and local policies would seriously disrupt federal immigration enforcement.

Federal authorities have argued that letting the Arizona law stand would create a patchwork of immigration laws nationwide that would needlessly complicate foreign relations. They said the law is disrupting U.S. relations with Mexico and other countries.

About 100 protesters in Mexico City who had gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy broke into cheers when they learned of Bolton's ruling. They had been monitoring the news on a laptop computer.

"Migrants, hang on, the people are rising up!" they chanted.

Mexico's Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinoza called the ruling "a first step in the right direction" and said staff at the five Mexican consulates in Arizona will work extra hours in coming weeks to educate migrants about the law.

"None of this is very surprising," said Kevin R. Johnson, an immigration expert and the law school dean at University of California at Davis. "This is all very much within the constitutional mainstream."

The federal government has exclusive powers over immigration to ensure a uniform national policy that aids in commerce and relations with other countries, Johnson said.

A century ago, differing policies among states led to problems that prompted the federal government to adopt a comprehensive immigration policy for the country, Johnson said.

Supporters took solace that the judge kept portions of the law intact, including a section that bars local governments from limiting enforcement of federal immigration laws. Those jurisdictions are commonly known as "sanctuary cities."

"Striking down these sanctuary city policies has always been the No. 1 priority," said Republican Sen. Russell Pearce, the law's chief author.

The remaining provisions, many of them revisions to an Arizona immigration statute, will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said the state will appeal Bolton's ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday, asking the appellate court to lift the injunction and allow the blocked provisions to take effect. The appeal will ask the 9th Circuit to act quickly, Senseman said.

Whatever way that court rules, Bolton will eventually hold a trial and issue a final ruling.

Wednesday's decision was seen as a defeat for Brewer, who is running for another term in November and has seen her political fortunes rise because of the law's popularity among conservatives.

Her opponent, state Attorney General Terry Goddard, pounced.

"Jan Brewer played politics with immigration, and she lost," the Democrat said. "It is time to look beyond election-year grandstanding and begin to repair the damage to Arizona's image and economy."

Some residents in Phoenix agreed.

"A lot of people don't understand the connection between, 'Yes, we have a problem with illegal immigration' and 'We need immigration reform,' which is not just asking people for their papers," said Kimber Lanning, a 43-year-old Phoenix music store owner.

"It was never a solution to begin with."

—

Associated Press writers Bob Christie, Paul Davenport and Michelle Price in Phoenix, Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Olga R. Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Judge blocks parts of Arizona immigration law

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27Jul/10Off

US braces for blowback over Afghan war disclosures

WASHINGTON -Operatives inside Afghanistan and Pakistan who have worked for the U.S. against the Taliban or al-Qaida may be at risk following the disclosure of thousands of once-secret U.S. military documents, former and current officials said.

As the Obama administration scrambles to repair any political damage to the war effort in Congress and among the American public by the WikiLeaks revelations, there are also growing concerns that some U.S. allies abroad may ask whether they can trust America to keep secrets, officials said.

Speaking in the Rose Garden Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he was concerned about the massive leak of sensitive documents about the Afghanistan war, but that the papers did not reveal any concerns that were not already part of the debate.

In his first public comments on the matter, Obama said the disclosure of classified information from the battlefield "could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations."

The president spoke in the Rose Garden following a meeting with House and Senate leaders of both parties.

In Baghdad, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters he was "appalled" by the leak. He said "there is a real potential threat there to put American lives at risk."

The Army is leading the Pentagon's inquiry into the source of the leak. A federal law enforcement official said the Justice Department is assisting in the probe. The law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity about the ongoing probe says the Justice Department does not have its own separate investigation into the leak, but rather is acting in a support role to the Pentagon.

Col. Dave Lapan said the Army criminal probe launched Tuesday is aimed at finding the source of secret documents published Sunday by WikiLeaks, an online site. The Army's criminal investigative division led the investigation into Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence specialist charged with leaking other material to WikiLeaks. Lapan said it's not clear whether the latest material came from Manning or someone else.

The WikiLeaks material, which ranges from files documenting Afghan civilian deaths to evidence of U.S.-Pakistani distrust, could reinforce war opponents in Congress who aim to rein in the war effort. But the leaks are not expected to dim the passage of a looming $60 billion war funding bill.

Congress has backed the war so far, and an early test of that continued support came when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., opened a hearing on the Afghan war.

At the hearing, few members mentioned the leak of documents but several expressed frustration at the lack of progress in improving Afghan governance and in drawing more ordinary Afghans away from the Taliban. In a tone of exasperation, Kerry questioned why the Taliban, with fewer resources, is able to field fighters who are more committed than Afghan soldiers.

"What's going on here?" Kerry asked.

In his only reference to the leak, Kerry called the new material "overhyped," said that it was released in violation of the law and that it largely involves raw intelligence reports from the field. He said he thought the document release could jeopardize the U.S. mission there.

Despite strong opposition among liberals who see Afghanistan as an unwinnable quagmire, House Democrats must either approve the funding bill before leaving at the end of this week for a six-week vacation, or commit political suicide by leaving troops in the lurch in war zones overseas.

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday he worries that the leaks won't stop "until we see someone in an orange jump suit."

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the military doesn't know who was behind the leaks, although it has launched "a very robust investigation."

Morrell complained that too much was being made of the documents. Referring to files that detailed American suspicions that some Pakistani intelligence officials were aiding insurgents, Morrell insisted those concerns have abated in recent years and the relationship has improved.

The disclosures, he said, are "clearly out of step with where this relationship is now, and has been heading for some time."

Morrell was interviewed on CBS's "The Early Show" and Bond appeared on NBC's "Today" show.

Even as the administration dismissed the WikiLeaks material as outdated, U.S. military and intelligence analysts were caught up in a speed-reading battle to limit the damage contained in the once-secret files now scattered across the Internet.

The officials are concerned about the impact on the military's human intelligence network built up over the past eight years inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such figures range from Afghan village elders who have worked behind the scenes with U.S. troops to militants working as double agents.

Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said the military may need weeks to review all the records to determine "the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners."

WikiLeaks said it has behaved responsibly, even withholding some 15,000 records that are believed to include names of specific Afghans or Pakistanis who helped U.S. troops on the ground.

But former CIA director Michael Hayden denounced the leak Monday as a gift to America's enemies.

"If I had gotten this trove on the Taliban or al-Qaida, I would have called it priceless," he said. "I would love to know what al-Qaida or the Taliban was thinking about a specific subject in 2007, for instance, because I could say they got that right and they got that wrong."

Hayden predicted the Taliban would take anything that described a U.S. strike and the intelligence behind it "and figure out who was in the room when that particular operation, say in 2008, was planned, and in whose home." Then the militants would probably punish the traitor who'd worked with the Americans, he said.

Another casualty of the disclosures may be American efforts to forge cooperation with Pakistan's secretive intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.

Multiple U.S. military cables posted by WikiLeaks complain about ISI complicity with the Taliban. And they also tell the Pakistanis "how much we know about them," said Robert Riegle, a former senior intelligence officer who now runs Mission Concepts Inc., a private intelligence firm.

"You're not going to see any cooperation," he said. "People are going to freeze."

The raw data released Sunday may also prove useful in a wider way to America's "frenemies" — the intelligence services of countries like China and Russia, who have the resources to process and make sense of such vast vaults of data, said Ellen McCarthy, former intelligence officer and president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

Former CIA chief Hayden added: "If I'm head of the Russian intelligence, I'm getting my best English speakers and saying: 'Read every document, and I want you to tell me, how good are these guys? What are their approaches, their strengths, their weaknesses and their blind spots?'"

—

Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

US braces for blowback over Afghan war disclosures

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25Jul/10Off

US aircraft carrier leads drills with South Korea

ABOARD USS GEORGE WASHINGTON -A nuclear-powered U.S. supercarrier led an armada of warships in exercises off the Korean peninsula on Sunday that North Korea has vowed to physically block and says could escalate into nuclear war.

U.S. military officials said the maneuvers, conducted with South Korean ships and Japanese observers, were intended to send a strong signal to the North that aggression in the region will not be tolerated.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been particularly high since the sinking in March of a South Korean naval vessel. Forty-six Korean sailors were killed in the sinking, which Seoul has called Pyongyang's worst military attack on it since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The military drills, code-named "Invincible Spirit," are to run through Wednesday with about 8,000 U.S. and South Korean troops, 20 ships and submarines and 200 aircraft. The Nimitz-class USS George Washington was deployed from Japan.

"We are showing our resolve," said Capt. David Lausman, the carrier's commanding officer.

North Korea has protested the drills, threatening to retaliate with "nuclear deterrence" and "sacred war."

The North routinely threatens attacks whenever South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an invasion. The U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea and another 50,000 in Japan, but says it has no intention of invading the North.

Still, the North's latest rhetoric carries extra weight following the sinking of the Cheonan.

Capt. Ross Myers, the commander of the carrier's air wing, said the exercises were not intended to raise tensions, but acknowledged they are meant to get North Korea's attention.

The George Washington, one of the biggest ships in the U.S. Navy, is a potent symbol of American military power, with about 5,000 sailors and aviators and the capacity to carry up to 70 planes.

"North Korea may contend that it is a provocation, but I would say the opposite," he said. "It is a provocation to those who don't want peace and stability. North Korea doesn't want this. They know that one of South Korea's strengths is its alliance with the United States."

He said that North Korea's threats to retaliate were being taken seriously.

"There is a lot they can do," he said. "They have ships, they have subs, they have airplanes. They are a credible threat."

The exercises are the first in a series of U.S.-South Korean maneuvers to be conducted in the East Sea off South Korea's east coast and in the Yellow Sea closer to China's shores in international waters. The exercises also are the first to employ the F-22 stealth fighter — which can evade North Korean air defenses — in South Korea.

South Korea was closely monitoring North Korea's military but spotted no unusual activity Sunday, the Defense Ministry said.

North Korea, which denies any involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan, warned the United States against holding the drills.

"Our military and people will squarely respond to the nuclear war preparation by the American imperialists and the South Korean puppet regime with our powerful nuclear deterrent," the North's government-run Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary Sunday headlined, "We also have nuclear weapons."

The commentary was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The North's powerful National Defense Commission issued a similar threat Saturday, saying the country "will start a retaliatory sacred war ... based on nuclear deterrent any time necessary in order to counter the U.S."

The country's Foreign Ministry separately said Saturday that Pyongyang is considering "powerful physical measures" in response to the U.S. military drills and sanctions.

Though the impoverished North has a large conventional military and the capability to build nuclear weapons, it is not believed to have the technology needed to use nuclear devices as warheads.

North Korea has been in increasingly difficult diplomatic straits since the Cheonan incident.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Wednesday, after visiting the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, that the U.S. would slap new sanctions on the North to stifle its nuclear ambitions and punish it for the Cheonan sinking.

On Friday, the European Union said it, too, would consider new sanctions on North Korea.

The George Washington had been expected to join in exercises off Korea sooner, but the Navy delayed those plans as the United Nations Security Council met to deliberate what action it should take over the Cheonan sinking.

The council eventually condemned the incident, but stopped short of naming North Korea as the perpetrator.

—

Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.

US aircraft carrier leads drills with South Korea

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24Jul/10Off

NKorea vows nuclear response to US-SKorea drills

SEOUL, South Korea -North Korea warned Saturday that joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises poised to begin this weekend amount to a military provocation that will draw a "powerful" nuclear response from Pyongyang.

North Korea routinely threatens war when South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an attack on the North. The latest threat comes amid increased tensions on the peninsula over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship that Seoul and Washington blame on Pyongyang.

The allies' defense chiefs announced earlier in the week they would stage the drills to send a clear message to North Korea to stop its "aggressive" behavior. Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in the March sinking of the Cheonan, considered the worst military attack on the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea vehemently denies any involvement, and says any punishment would trigger war.

In Hanoi, a North Korean spokesman for the delegation attending a regional security conference warned Friday the drills would draw a "physical response" from Pyongyang.

On Saturday, North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission — headed by leader Kim Jong Il — backed that threat up by promising a "retaliatory sacred war" against South Korea and the U.S. for what it called a second "unpardonable" provocation after wrongly accusing the North in the Cheonan incident.

"The army and people of the (North) will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises," the commission said in a statement carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said no unusual North Korean military movements were detected.

The nuclear-powered USS George Washington supercarrier is already docked in the southern port of Busan for the military games set to begin Sunday. In addition, the U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in the South to deter against aggression, a presence that Pyongyang cites as a key reason behind its drive to build nuclear weapons.

"The more desperately the U.S. imperialists brandish their nukes and the more zealously their lackeys follow them, the more rapidly the (North's) nuclear deterrence will be bolstered up along the orbit of self-defense and the more remote the prospect for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will be become," the commission statement said.

The U.S.-South Korean military drills are to set to run through Wednesday, with about 8,000 U.S. and South Korean troops on some 20 ships and submarines carrying out exercises in the East Sea.

The drills also involve some 200 aircraft, headlined by four U.S. Air Force's F-22 "Raptor" stealth fighters.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Wednesday, after visiting the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, the U.S. would slap new sanctions on the North to stifle its nuclear ambitions and punish it for the Cheonan sinking.

On Friday, the European Union said it, too, would consider new sanctions on the North.

In Hanoi, Clinton and a North Korean official traded barbs Friday over the sinking, the military drills and the imposition of the new U.S. sanctions. North Korean spokesman Ri Tong Il said the tensions showed the need to negotiate a peace treaty to replace the armistice signed at the end of the Korean War.

Clinton said the U.S. is willing to meet and negotiate with the North, but this type of threat only heightens tensions. She added progress in the short term seems unlikely.

"It is distressing when North Korea continues its threats and causes so much anxiety among its neighbors and the larger region," she told reporters. "But we will demonstrate once again with our military exercises ... that the United States stands in firm support of the defense of South Korea and we will continue to do so."

The 27-member bloc meeting in Hanoi — 10 members of ASEAN and countries with major interests in the area like the U.S., China, Japan, North and South Korea and Russia — expressed "deep concern" over the Cheonan's sinking in a joint statement, a weakened version of an earlier ASEAN statement.

—

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Jim Gomez in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Jean H. Lee in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

NKorea vows nuclear response to US-SKorea drills

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21Jul/10Off

Fired Ag worker mulls job offer after WH apology

WASHINGTON -The White House did a sudden about-face Wednesday and begged for forgiveness from the black Agriculture Department employee whose ouster ignited an embarrassing political firestorm over race. She was offered a "unique opportunity" for a new job and said she was thinking it over.

With lightning speed, the controversy moved from Monday's forced resignation of a minor U.S. Ag official in Georgia to Tuesday's urgent discussions at the White House amid a rising public outcry and then to Wednesday's repeated apologies and pleas for Shirley Sherrod to come back.

Sherrod said she resigned under White House pressure after the airing of a video of racial remarks she made at an NAACP gathering about events that transpired more than two decades ago. But Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said repeatedly on Wednesday that the decision had been his alone.

"I asked for Shirley's forgiveness and she was gracious enough to extend it to me," he said after reaching her by telephone.

Sherrod, in a phone interview with The Associated Press, said, "They did make an offer. I just told him I need to think about it."

The controversy threatened to grow into more than a three-day distraction for Obama's administration, with important midterm congressional elections nearing and partisan feelings already running high. President Barack Obama said nothing publicly about the developments while administration officials tried to simultaneously show his concern and to distance him from the original ousting.

It all began with the airing of a video on a conservative website of Sherrod's remarks about not doing all she could to help a white farmer. After she was told to resign — with the NAACP declaring its approval — the situation grew more complicated when the rest of the edited video was released by the NAACP and Sherrod insisted her remarks were about reconciliation, not the stoking of racism.

By Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was apologizing to Sherrod "for the entire administration" and saying that officials did not know all the facts when she was fired and should have investigated more. He said he didn't know if the president would talk to Sherrod himself.

The president had been briefed, Gibbs said, and "he talked about the fact that a disservice had been done, an injustice had happened and, because the facts had changed, a review of the decision based on those facts should be taken."

Said Vilsack, who also met with the Congressional Black Caucus, "This is a good woman. She's been put through hell. ... I could have done and should have done a better job."

"Shirley and I talked about a unique opportunity at USDA," he said. "With all that she has seen, endured and accomplished, it would be invaluable to have her experience, commitment and record of service at USDA. I hope she considers staying with the department."

"I accept the apology," Sherrod said on CNN after watching Gibbs talk to reporters on television. But she said the apology took too long.

Sherrod, appointed to her job last July, was asked to resign after conservative bloggers posted a video of her saying she didn't initially give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago, when she was working for a farmers' aid group. Sherrod said she used the story in her speech to the NAACP to promote racial reconciliation and that the edited video distorted her remarks.

Like the administration, the NAACP reversed its stance on Sherrod and called for her to be rehired.

The incident was the latest in a series of race-related brouhahas to garner national attention since Obama became the nation's first black chief executive.

A year ago, Obama convened a "beer summit" at the White House between a black Harvard scholar and the white police sergeant who arrested him after a confrontation at the black man's home. The president also faced criticism over nominating to the Supreme Court judge Sonia Sotomayor, who had once remarked on the virtues of having a "wise Latina" on the bench. And there are complaints about the Justice Department's handling of allegations that New Black Panther Party members threatened voters at a Philadelphia polling place on the day Obama was elected.

Black leaders piled on Wednesday in criticizing Sherrod's ouster. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called on the administration to apologize and give Sherrod her job back. The Congressional Black Caucus, with 42 members of Congress, called for Sherrod to be reinstated immediately.

However, the Rev. Al Sharpton said black leaders should refrain from calling for an apology from the Obama administration, saying that creates the impression that black leadership is fractured. "We are only greasing the rails for the right wing to run a train through our ambitions and goals for having civil and human rights in this country," Sharpton said.

The episode comes as the NAACP and the conservative tea party group have been trading charges of racism.

The two-minute, 38-second clip posted Monday by BigGovernment.com was presented as evidence that the NAACP was hypocritical in its recent resolution condemning what it calls racist elements of the tea party. The website's owner, Andrew Breitbart, said the video shows the civil rights group condoning the same kind of racism it says it wants to erase. BigGovernment.com is the same outfit that gained notice last year after airing video of workers at the community group ACORN counseling actors posing as a prostitute and her pimp.

In the clip posted on BigGovernment.com, Sherrod described the first time a white farmer came to her for help. It was 1986, and she worked for a nonprofit rural farm aid group. She said the farmer came in acting "superior" to her and she debated how much help to give him.

"I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land," Sherrod said.

Initially, she said, "I didn't give him the full force of what I could do" and only gave him enough help to keep his case progressing. Eventually, she said, his situation "opened my eyes" that whites were struggling just like blacks, and helping farmers wasn't so much about race but was "about the poor versus those who have."

The story moved from the Internet to Fox News Channel on Monday night. Host Bill O'Reilly showed a brief portion of Sherrod's speech where she talked about withhholding "the full force" of her efforts.

"Wow," O'Reilly said after the clip aired. "That is simply unacceptable and Ms. Sherrod must resign. The federal government cannot have skin color deciding any assistance." Fox's Sean Hannity aired the same short snippet of Sherrod's speech and said that "this was racist."

"This was at an NAACP dinner and this was racist," Hannity said.

By Wednesday, Fox's focus shifted to accusing the Obama administration of rushing to judgment.

People who knew Sherrod were quick to defend her, including the wife of the white farmer whom she discussed in the speech.

"We probably wouldn't have (our farm) today if it hadn't been for her leading us in the right direction," said Eloise Spooner of Iron City, Ga. "I wish she could get her job back because she was good to us, I tell you."

In the full 43-minute video, Sherrod tells the story of her father's death in 1965, saying he was killed by white men who were never charged. She says she made a commitment to stay in the South the night of her father's death, despite the dreams she had always had of leaving her rural town.

"When I made that commitment I was making that commitment to black people and to black people only," she said. "But you know God will show you things and he'll put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people."

Sherrod said officials showed no interest in listening to her explanation when she was asked to resign. She said she was on the road Monday when USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her and told her to pull over and submit her resignation on her Blackberry because the White House wanted her out.

"It hurts me that they didn't even try to attempt to see what is happening here, they didn't care," Sherrod said.

—

Online:

Full video posted by NAACP:
http://tinyurl.com/23jqz95

Fired Ag worker mulls job offer after WH apology

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11Jul/10Off

64 die in bomb attacks in Uganda during World Cup

KAMPALA, Uganda -In simultaneous bombings bearing the hallmarks of international terrorists, two explosions ripped through crowds watching the World Cup final in two places in Uganda's capital late Sunday, killing 64 people, police said. Americans were among the casualties.

The deadliest attack occurred at a rugby club as people watched the game between Spain and the Netherlands on a large-screen TV outdoors. The second blast took place at an Ethiopian restaurant, where at least three Americans were wounded.

Kampala's police chief said he believed Somalia's most feared militant group, al-Shabab, could be responsible for the attack. Al-Shabab is known to have links with al-Qaida, and it counts militant veterans from the Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan conflicts among its ranks.

A head and legs were found at the rugby club, suggesting a suicide bomber may have been to blame, an AP reporter at the scene said.

At least three Americans — part of a church group from Pennsylvania — were wounded at the Ethiopian restaurant. One was Kris Sledge, 18, of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania

"I remember blacking out, hearing people screaming and running," Sledge said from the hospital. His right leg was wrapped and he had burns on his face. "I love the place here but I'm wondering why this happened and who did this ... At this point we're just glad to be alive."

At the scenes of the two blasts, blood and pieces of flesh littered the floor among overturned chairs.

Police Chief Kale Kaihura originally said at least 30 people had been killed, though the toll could be higher.

Later, a senior police official at the scene said that 64 people had been killed, 49 from the rugby club and 15 at the Ethiopian restaurant. The official said he could not be identified.

Kaihura said he suspected al-Shabab, that country's most feared militant group. Its fighters, including two recruited from the Somali communities in the United States, have carried out multiple suicide bombings in Somalia. If Kaihura's suspicions that al-Shabab was responsible for the Uganda bombings prove true, it would be the first time the group has carried out attacks outside of Somalia.

In Mogadishu, Sheik Yusuf Sheik Issa, an al-Shabab commander, told The Associated Press early Monday that he was happy with the attacks in Uganda. Issa refused to confirm or deny that al-Shabab was responsible for the bombings.

"Uganda is one of our enemies. Whatever makes them cry, makes us happy. May Allah's anger be upon those who are against us," Sheik said.

—

Associated Press reporters Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu, Somalia, and Godfrey Olukya in Kampala, contributed to this report. Straziuso reported from Nairobi, Kenya.

64 die in bomb attacks in Uganda during World Cup

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10Jul/10Off

6 US troops, 12 civilians killed in Afghan attacks

KABUL, Afghanistan -Six American service members and at least a dozen civilians died in attacks Saturday in Afghanistan's volatile east and south, adding to a summer of escalating violence as Taliban militants push back against stepped-up operations by international and Afghan forces.

NATO said four U.S. service members died in the east: One as a result of small-arms fire, another by a roadside bomb, a third during an insurgent attack and the last in an accidental explosion. Two other U.S. troops died in separate roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan. Their deaths raised to 23 the number of American troops killed so far this month in the war.

Also, unknown gunmen killed 11 Pakistani Shia tribesmen in the east and at least one person died when a bomb planted on a motorbike exploded in Kandahar city in the south, officials said.

Explosions also hit two convoys of international troops in different parts of the country, with Germany saying two of its troops were wounded by a roadside bomb in the northern province of Kunduz. Another explosion targeted NATO troops in Khost in the east, but the alliance said there were no casualties.

Afghan and international forces also said a combined commando unit killed a Taliban operative and captured eight others in an overnight raid in Paktia province in the east, though local villagers claimed the men were innocent civilians. In the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, thousands of Afghan's staged an anti-U.S. protest over another night raid that killed two security guards.

Insurgent attacks have intensified across the country and the international coalition has been stepping up raids to root out militant leaders as 30,000 more American troops arrive to try to turn around the war and build a stable Afghan government nine years after U.S.-backed forces toppled the Taliban's hard-line Islamist regime.

Last month was the deadliest of the war for the multinational force, with 103 international troops killed, 60 of them Americans.

A remotely detonated motorcycle bomb killed one person Saturday in Kandahar city, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban, authorities said.

The blast set cars ablaze and shattered windows at a popular shopping center. One man was killed as he drove by in a car just as the bomb exploded, the provincial government said in a statement.

The province is the site of a U.S.-led military operation to strengthen government control.

In the eastern border province of Paktia, unidentified gunmen killed 11 Pakistanis who had crossed into Afghanistan to buy supplies, according to Rohullah Samon, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Samon said 11 Shia minority Muslim tribesmen died and three people, including a child, were wounded in the ambush of their minibus in Chamkani district.

Elsewhere in Paktia, a combined Afghan-coalition commando force raided a compound in Ahmad Abad district overnight, killing one person and arresting nine others, officials said.

The Ministry of Defense said the elite force killed an insurgent operative and captured eight others with weapons. The ninth person arrested was determined to be a civilian and turned over to local authorities, it said in a statement.

Paktia spokesman Samon complained that local authorities were not informed of the raid. He said villagers protested outside government offices Saturday, saying the dead man and those captured were innocent civilians. They promised a larger demonstration the next day if the eight prisoners were not released.

Combined coalition and Afghan forces have been stepping up night raids across the country trying to break up Taliban leadership and operations capability.

In the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, more than 1,000 people protested Saturday against the deaths of two security guards in another night raid near a market.

The crowd chanted "Death to America! Long live Islam!" Protesters said the security guards were unjustly killed when combined Afghan and international forces landed by helicopter at the bazaar before dawn Wednesday.

NATO spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said the two guards were shot when they raised their weapons at the commandos and refused orders to put them down. He said the raid succeeded in capturing a Taliban operative who supplied bomb-making material.

The coalition says the new wave of raids has captured more than 100 senior- and midlevel Taliban figures since April and killed dozens more. But the success rate has not made much of a dent in insurgent attacks.

On Saturday, an explosion tore through a NATO convoy traveling in the eastern province of Khost, though no one was killed. The German army later said two of its soldiers were slightly wounded by a roadside bomb in the northern province of Kunduz — the second homemade explosive attack on German troops in the area that day.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force has been in Afghanistan since shortly after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, when U.S.-backed forces toppled the regime that sheltered the al-Qaida terrorist leadership following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

—

Associated Press Writer Mirwais Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.

6 US troops, 12 civilians killed in Afghan attacks

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27Jun/10Off

Tropical Storm Alex sets sights on Gulf of Mexico

BELIZE CITY -Tropical Storm Alex headed overland toward the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday, drenching Belize, northern Guatemala and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula with torrential rains.

Meteorologists project Alex, which made landfall on Belize's coast late Saturday, will weaken as it passes over the Yucatan Peninsula but will regain strength once it emerges Sunday evening over the Gulf of Mexico, where warm waters could fuel its growth into a hurricane.

According to the most recent predictions, Alex is expected to make a second landfall midweek on the Mexican Gulf coast — far south and west of the region where a deep-sea oil spill is slicking the U.S. coastline.

Hundreds of tourists and residents fled low-lying islands off Belize on Saturday as Alex swept in with torrential downpours and winds of 60 mph (95 kph). Many stocked up on gasoline, water, canned food and other emergency supplies.

Belize officials opened storm shelters in the island tourist resort of San Pedro, as some 1,400 people fled for the mainland by plane and by boat.

Along Mexico's resort-studded Caribbean coast, officials warned tourists to stay out of rough surf kicked up by the storm. But there were no immediate reports of damage to popular beach destinations such as Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen or Tulum.

State Public Safety director Miguel Ramos Real said 25 fisherman were evacuated and 17 navy personnel were brought to the mainland from a base on Banco Chinchorro, an atoll off the Mexican coast. Three shelters were opened, and ports were closed to small craft.

Now all eyes turn to the Gulf of Mexico.

When Alex became the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, officials immediately worried what effect it could have on the millions of gallons of crude spilled in the Gulf — and on efforts to clean up the slick and cap the leak deep below the waves.

A cap has been placed over the blown-out undersea well and it is carrying some of the oil to a surface ship where it is being collected. Some of the oil is being brought to the surface and burned. Other ships are drilling two relief wells, projected to be done by August, and are the best hope to stop the leak.

For the time being, the storm appears likely to miss the oil-slicked region and make landfall in Mexico, somewhere near the border of Tamaulipas and Veracruz states — but meteorologists warned that a storm's track can quickly change.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Alex was centered about 55 miles (90 kilometers) southwest of Chetumal, Mexico, early Sunday. Maximum sustained winds were about 40 mph (65 kph).

Meanwhile in the Pacific, two storms were far offshore late Saturday night and did not pose an immediate threat to land.

Once-powerful Celia weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph), the hurricane center said. The storm should fall apart by Sunday.

Darby, which was also a powerful hurricane, has also weakened to a tropical storm. Its center is about 305 miles (490 kilometers) south-southwest of Zihuatanejo, Mexico.

—

Associated Press writer Gabriel Alcocer in Cancun, Mexico, contributed to this report.

Tropical Storm Alex sets sights on Gulf of Mexico

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19Jun/10Off

As oil spews in Gulf, BP chief at UK yacht race

LONDON -BP chief executive Tony Hayward, often criticized for being tone-deaf to U.S. concerns about the worst oil spill in American history, took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race off England's Isle of Wight.

Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico to watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.

The one-day yacht race is one of the world's largest, attracting hundreds of boats and thousands of sailors.

In a statement, BP described Hayward's day off as "a rare moment of private time" and said that "no matter where he is, he is always in touch with what is happening within BP" and can direct recovery operations if required.

That is likely to be a hard sell in Gulf states struggling to deal with the up to 120 million gallons of oil that have escaped from a blown-out undersea well.

A pair of relief wells that won't be done until August is the best bet to stop the massive spill that was set off by an oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers on April 20. BP has been hammered for its response, in part because of comments by Hayward that Gulf Coast residents horrified by the spill consider insensitive.

By late June, the oil giant hopes it can keep nearly 90 percent of the flow from hitting the ocean. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen on Friday said a newly expanded containment system is capturing or incinerating more than 1 million gallons (3.8 million liters) of oil daily, the first time it has approached its peak capacity.

British environmental groups immediately slammed Hayward's outing. Charlie Kronick of Greenpeace said Hayward was "rubbing salt into the wounds" of Gulf residents whose livelihoods have been wrecked by the disaster.

"Clearly it is incredibly insulting for him to be sailing in the Isle of Wight," he said.

Hugh Walding, the coordinator of the Isle of Wight Friends of the Earth, said Hayward's choice of venue was sure to arouse anger.

"I'm sure that this will be seen as yet another public relations disaster," Walding said.

Hayward's public persona has already dented the company's image. Hayward angered many in the United States when he was quoted in the Times of London as suggesting that Americans were particularly likely to file bogus claims. He later shocked residents in Louisiana by telling them that no one wanted to resolve the crisis as badly as he did, adding: "I'd like my life back."

On Thursday, Hayward told lawmakers on a U.S. House investigations panel that he was out of the loop on decisions surrounding the blown well. Both Democrats and Republicans were infuriated when he asserted, "I'm not stonewalling."

The next day, BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg seemed to suggest that Hayward was being withdrawn from the front line of the oil spill response, although his comments were later qualified by company spokespeople.

"It is clear that Tony has made remarks that have upset people," Svanberg said in a U.K. television interview.

It was not clear whether Hayward actually took part in Saturday's race or attended as a spectator. Williams refused to comment beyond saying that the embattled chief executive was there with his son.

Peta Stuart-Hunt, a press officer for the event, said Hayward "wasn't listed on any of the crew list." She said she could not immediately who was on the crew list.

"If he is on the boat, he's in contravention of the rules," she said.

—

Associated Press Writer Ray Henry contributed from New Orleans.

As oil spews in Gulf, BP chief at UK yacht race

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